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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Vaty Poitevien, MD¹, Marcelo Venegas-Pizarro, MD², Gregory W. Edwards, EdD², Jon-David Settell, MSW², and Sunday Walsh². (1) Housing Works, Inc., 57 Willoughby St., 2nd floor., Brooklyn, NY 11201, 917 662-6019, poitevien@housingworks.org, (2) Health Services, Housing Works, 57 Willoughby St., 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Reliable data regarding HIV/AIDS rates among transgender/gender variant people do not exist in either US Census or AIDS surveillance programs. Small individual needs assessments and surveys point to the probability of a very high HIV infection rate, especially among sex workers in the transgender/trans-variant community. At the same time, this population faces multiple impediments to quality healthcare, including discrimination, lack of medical expertise, stigmatization, lack of financial resources or health insurance, homelessness, mental illness, and substance abuse.

The Transgender Healthcare Empowerment Program is a pilot program running out of an HIV/AIDS service organization in New York City. The empowerment program involves outreach and recruitment efforts for transgender/gender variant peoples into preventive services, adult day treatment and primary care. The plan is to train and educate medical and support service providers to become clinically and culturally competent in delivering care to this population. Peer health promoters will conduct HIV prevention, outreach and recruitment in high traffic transgender/gender variant population areas. HIV positive and non-positive transgender/gender variant individuals will be invited to participate and receive integrated primary care --including free hormone prescribing and management, psychiatric and social work services.

Weekly dinner meetings will promote bonding, community building and socialization. A transgender/gender-variant council will evaluate program implementation. Case management and empowerment classes will be co-led by peer educators. Clinical care teams with peer workers will closely monitor client participation, care plans, progress and outcome evaluations. Quarterly evaluations will track HIV prevalence, primary care visits, group attendance and program outcomes.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the need to increase access to health services for the transgender/gender variant population.
• Identify the transgender/gender variant population as a marginalized community with a high risk for HIV transmission.
• Define the importance of peer involvement in program planning and implementation for transgender/gender variant populations.

Keywords: Gender, HIV Interventions

Related Web page: www.housingworks.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered