Implementation of telemedicine and social network driven HIV service uptake for comprehensive HIV service integration in rural syringe service programs
Research Grant Start Date:
08/01/2023
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Research Summary
Telemedicine provides a sustainable method to deliver services where they are scarce. We successfully piloted telehealth delivery of hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment and medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) for people who inject drugs (PWID) at rural syringe service programs (SSPs). We will adapt and expand on our telemedicine pilot to bring HIV prevention and treatment services to rural SSPs. A key innovation of our intervention will be to combine dissemination of information with distribution of HIV self-testing kits through PWID networks. HIV self-testing strategies are endorsed by the World Health Organization and have been shown to increase testing coverage and new HIV diagnoses in high prevalence regions of sub-Saharan Africa and among MSM, but have been little explored among PWID. We propose to evaluate a model that leverages peer educators to disseminate HIV self-testing kits and information while also providing peer navigation to network members for HIV prevention and treatment services uptake via telemedicine at rural SSPs.