The Health Equity Framework: A Science- and Justice-Based Model for Public Health Researchers and Practitioners.

In this article, we describe a science- and justice-based framework for promoting health equity designed for researchers and practitioners working across public health and social science fields. We developed the health equity framework (HEF; etr.org/healthequityframework) in two phases of iterative development.

Evaluation of the Southern Harm Reduction Coalition for HIV Prevention: Advocacy Accomplishments.

Background: HIV/AIDS rates are higher in the Southern United States compared to other regions of the country. Reasons for disparities include poverty, health care access, and racism. People who inject drugs (PWID) account for 8% of HIV/AIDS incidence rates.

Exploring Changes in Interagency Collaboration Following AIDS United's Positive Charge: A Five-Site HIV Linkage and Retention in Care Program.

Background: Many out-of-care people living with HIV have unmet basic needs and are served by loosely connected agencies. Prior research suggests that increasing agencies' coordination may lead to higher quality and better coordinated care. This study examines four U.

Cost and cost threshold analyses for 12 innovative US HIV linkage and retention in care programs.

Out of >1,000,000 people living with HIV in the USA, an estimated 60% were not adequately engaged in medical care in 2011. In response, AIDS United spearheaded 12 HIV linkage and retention in care programs. These programs were supported by the Social Innovation Fund, a White House initiative.

Cost-Utility Analysis of Three U.S. HIV Linkage and Re-engagement in Care Programs from Positive Charge.

Linking and retaining people living with HIV in ongoing, HIV medical care is vital for ending the U.S. HIV epidemic.

Unpacking Linkage and Reengagement in HIV Care: A Day in the Life of a Positive Charge Care Coordinator.

Unlabelled: AIDS United's Positive Charge (PC) was a multiorganizational HIV linkage to care program implemented in five U.S.

Locations: To better understand the process of linkage and reengagement in care, we conducted interviews with care coordinators and program supervisors at 20 PC implementing agencies.

Barriers and Facilitators to Implementing Access to HIV Care Interventions: A Qualitative Analysis of the Positive Charge Initiative.

Research indicates that less than half of people living with HIV (PLWH) have undetectable levels of virus, despite recent findings that viral load suppression dramatically reduces the transmissibility of HIV. Linkage to HIV care is a crucial initial step, yet we know relatively little about how to effectively implement linkage interventions to reach PLWH who are not in care. AIDS United's initiative, Positive Charge (PC), funded five U.

Cost and threshold analysis of positive charge, a multi-site linkage to HIV care program in the United States.

Positive Charge (PC) is a linkage to HIV care initiative implemented by AIDS United with sites in New York, Chicago, Louisiana, North Carolina, and the San Francisco/Bay Area. This study employed standard methods of cost and threshold analyses, as recommended by the US Panel on Cost-effectiveness in Health and Medicine, to calculate cost-saving and cost effective thresholds of the initiative. The overall societal cost of the linkage to care programs ranged from $48,490 to $370,525.

Positive Charge: Filling the Gaps in the U.S. HIV Continuum of Care.

Adequate engagement in HIV care is necessary for the achievement of optimal health outcomes and for the reduction of HIV transmission. Positive Charge (PC) was a national HIV linkage and re-engagement in care program implemented by AIDS United. This study describes three PC programs, the characteristics of their participants, and the continuum of engagement in care for their participants.

Knowledge, attitudes, and likelihood of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use among US women at risk of acquiring HIV.

Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved oral Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for women at risk of HIV infection in the US in July 2012, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidance for clinicians to provide PrEP to women "at substantial risk of HIV acquisition" in May 2014, there remain no clinical trial data on efficacy among US women, and there is a dearth of research on knowledge, attitudes, and likelihood of use of PrEP among them. We conducted a qualitative focus group (FG) study with 144 at-risk women in six US cities between July and September 2013, including locations in the Southern US, where HIV infections among women are most prevalent. FG questions elicited awareness of PrEP, attitudes about administration and uptake, and barriers to and facilitators of use.

The development and implementation of the national evaluation strategy of Access to Care, a multi-site linkage to care initiative in the United States.

The Access to Care (A2C) is a multi-site initiative that seeks to increase the access to and retention in effective HIV healthcare and support services by people living with HIV across the United States. As the initiative implemented evidence-based programs in new settings with diverse populations, it was important to document these innovative efforts to contribute to the evidence base for best practices. In a partnership between Johns Hopkins University, AIDS United, and the A2C sites, a national evaluation strategy was developed and implemented to build knowledge about how linkage to care interventions could be most effectively implemented within the context of local, real-world settings.

Core competencies and the prevention of high-risk sexual behavior.

Adolescent sexual risk-taking behavior has numerous individual, family, community, and societal consequences. In an effort to contribute to the research and propose new directions, this chapter applies the core competencies framework to the prevention of high-risk sexual behavior. It describes the magnitude of the problem, summarizes explanatory theories of high-risk sexual behavior, and highlights the association between high-risk sexual behaviors and the five core competencies.

Abortion and long-term mental health outcomes: a systematic review of the evidence.

Claims that women who have elective abortions will experience psychological distress have fueled much of the recent debate on abortion. It has been argued that the emotional sequelae of abortion may not occur until months or years after the event. Despite unclear evidence on such a phenomenon, adverse mental health outcomes of abortion have been used as a rationale for policy-making.