141st APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Recorded Annual Meeting Presentations (RAMP) are now available for purchase.
Only $90 for presenters, $140 for registered attendees and $200 for non-attendees.

Online Program

291446
Improving access to HIV testing: The Drop-in-to-Test (DitT) open access project


Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Wendy Hachmoller, MSc, MPH, Newham Public Health Directorate, NHS North East London and the City, London E16 2QU, United Kingdom
Issues: Late and undiagnosed HIV is a significant public health issue in London borough of Newham, England particularly, among black African population who are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. Although black Africans represent only 9.5% of the total population they account for 61% of HIV cases in the borough. Description: The Drop- in –to Test (DitT) was set up in December 2011 to provide open access rapid HIV testing in non-clinical community setting. DitT main objective is to improve uptake of testing among black Africans and other at risk groups and link reactive cases to early care and treatment. HIV testing is carried out by trained non – clinical workers. All clients are engaged in pre and post-test discussions. Consenting clients are tested with rapid HIV testing kit. Clients with preliminary reactive result are referred to specialised HIV clinical services for confirmatory testing, care and treatment and follow up. Results: From April 2012 to January 2013, the project performed a total of 89 tests. Preliminary reactive rate during this period was of 4.5%. Over 45% clients tested were black Africans. Of these 70% were male.

Conclusion: Open access non-clinical community HIV testing is convenient and acceptable to clients. It offers an opportunity to meet the needs of hard to reach at risk groups. Experience from this project show that non-clinical HIV testing program can contribute to increasing the number of people who know their HIV serostatus and reduce further transmission.

Learning Areas:

Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Program planning
Provision of health care to the public

Learning Objectives:
Describe how open access non-clinical community based HIV testing program can improve uptake of testing Discuss how open access non-clinical community based HIV testing program can be integrated into primary care and HIV clinical specialist services Assess the extent to which best practice and experience learned from open access non-clinical community based HIV testing program can be employed in other disease areas.

Keyword(s): Community-Based Public Health, Access

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified to be an abstract author on the content I am responsible for because I am the public health manager who developed and managed the delivery of this HIV testing project.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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