Chi-Chi N. Udeagu

Lost or just not following up: public health effort to re-engage HIV-infected persons lost to follow-up into HIV medical care.

Objective:Locate persons living with HIV (PLWH) presumed lost to follow-up (LTFU), and assist them with partner services and linkage to HIV-related care. Design:Locate and facilitate re-engagement in care for PLWH-LTFU in New York City (NYC), with longitudinal follow-up using HIV surveillance registry. Settings:HIV care facilities and communities in NYC. Patients:PLWH, reported in the NYC HIV surveillance registry, who had a NYC care provider and residential address at last report in the registry. Presumed-LTFU was defined as having no CD4+ or viral load during the most recent 9 months during the study period July 2008–December 2010. Intervention:Case-workers conducted public health investigation to locate PLWH presumed-LTFU and offered them assistance with partner and linkage-to-care services. Main outcome measures:Results of partner and linkage-to-care services, and reasons for LTFU. Results:From July 2008 to December 2010, 797 PLWH presumed-LTFU were prioritized for investigation; 14% were never located. Of the 689 located, 33% were current to care, 5% had moved or were incarcerated, 2% had died, and 59% (409) were verified to be LTFU. Once located, 77% (315/409) accepted clinic appointments, and 57% (232/409) returned to care. Among the 161 who provided reasons for LTFU, the most commonly reported was ‘felt well’ (41%). Conclusions:Health department case-workers helped more than half PLWH-LTFU re-engage in HIV medical care. HIV prevention strategies must include efforts to re-engage PLWH-LTFU in care, for treatment consideration under current treatment guidelines to improve their clinical status and decrease transmission risk.

Bringing HIV partner services into the age of social media and mobile connectivity.

Background A substantial proportion of recent sex partners named by persons with sexually transmitted infections are not notified about their exposure despite attempts by public health officials. Although text messaging (texting) and Internet-based communications (dating Web sites, e-mail, etc) are used by a large segment of the public for regular communications, these tools have been underused for partner services (PS). Methods We augmented PS for HIV in New York City using texting and Internet-based means to contact persons for whom traditional information (landline telephone number, postal address) was unavailable. We compared traditional PS (traditionalPS), Internet-based PS (IPS) in January 2011 to October 2012, and texting PS (txtPS) from January 2012 (when txtPS was initiated) through October 2012 on outcomes of contact attempts, notification, and HIV testing. Results From January 2011 to October 2012, of 3319 partners elicited, 2604 and 275 partners had traditional and only Internet-based contact information and were selected for traditionalPS and IPS, respectively. From January to October 2012, 368 of 1569 partners had only texting-enabled cellphone numbers and were selected for txtPS. The contact rate for txtPS (285/368 [77%]) was significantly higher (P < 0.0001) than the contact rates for traditionalPS (1803/2604 [69%]) and IPS (112/275 [41%]). There was a higher likelihood of notifying contacted IPS (odds ratio, 2.1; 1.2–3.4) and txtPS (odds ratio, 2.4; 1.7–3.2) than traditionalPS partners (P ⩽ 0.0001). However, among the notified partners, traditionalPS partners were significantly (P < 0.0001) more likely than txtPS or IPS partners to test for HIV after partner notification (69% vs 45% and 34%, respectively). Conclusions Augmenting traditionalPS with txtPS and IPS enabled notification of hundreds of previously untraceable partners and several new HIV diagnoses.

Barriers to HIV testing among HIV/AIDS concurrently diagnosed persons in New York City.

Objectives: To assess barriers to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing, health care contacts history, and HIV testing history among patients diagnosed concurrently with HIV and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Methods: We surveyed patients concurrently diagnosed with HIV/AIDS who had participated in the partner notification program of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, between January 2008 and December 2008. Results: The most common reason interviewees volunteered for delaying testing (64%) was that they did not believe they were at risk for HIV. When read a list of potential barriers, 69% of interviewees replied affirmatively that they did not test for HIV because they did not believe they were at risk, and 52% replied affirmatively that they did not test because they thought their behaviors kept them safe from getting HIV. Half of all interviewees reported having insurance during part or all of the year before they were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, and 70% had at least 1 health care visit in the year before they were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Conclusions: A lack of perception of risk was the most common reason for not testing for HIV sooner among these concurrently diagnosed patients. The majority of these patients were accessing medical care, indicating that this population could have benefited from routine HIV testing.

Hiv partner services are associated with timely linkage to Hiv medical care

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that persons diagnosed with HIV receive partner services with health department involvement. CDC describes partner services as not only including partner notification, but also linkage to medical care for HIV-infected persons. The New York City Health Department formed a unit in 2006 to expedite partner services. We examined the contribution of our HIV partner services program in improving timely linkage and retention in HIV medical care.

Comparing HIV partner notification effectiveness between blacks and Hispanics in New York City.

Between July 2006 and November 2007, a total of 894 blacks and 491 Hispanics were interviewed to assess partner notification services. Fewer Hispanics needed to be interviewed to identify 1 newly diagnosed partner as compared with blacks (24 vs. 60, P < 0.01), but number needed to be interviewed was similar for identifying partners with any HIV infection.

For partner services, do we need "face-time," or FaceTime?: Trends in relative proportion of in-person notifications and HIV testing after introduction of a telephone option for HIV exposure notification by public health.

Public health usually notifies partners of STD exposure in-person despite availability of other options. We examined trends in in-person versus telephone notification for HIV 3 years after the introduction of a telephone option. Most notifications were made by telephone. Partners notified doubled; however, the proportion HIV testing declined slightly.

The Effect of HIV Field-Based Testing on the Proportion of Notified Partners Who Test for HIV in New York City

HIV partner services can effectively reach populations with high HIV prevalence. However, located and notified sex and needle-sharing partners of persons infected with HIV often fail to test. Field testing may increase the proportion of notified partners who test for HIV. In 2008, New York Citys health department incorporated field testing into partner services. After the introduction of field testing, the proportion of notified partners who tested for HIV rose from 52% to 76% (P<.001). HIV prevalence fell slightly among notified partners who accepted testing (12% to 9%, P=.82), but we identified more than double the number of new positives (11 vs 25). All positive and 97% of negative results were received by the person tested.

A Comparison of Partner Notification Effectiveness in African-, Caribbean-, and United States-Born HIV-Infected Blacks in New York City

HIV disproportionately affects blacks more than other groups in New York City (NYC) as well as nationally. Partner Services (PS) are a proven way to interrupt HIV transmission. In NYC, PS outcomes are worse among blacks compared to other race/ethnic groups. We compared PS outcomes by country of birth to identify opportunities for improved PS effectiveness. We assessed number of sex and needle-sharing partners elicited, notified, and HIV tested, as well as number of newly identified HIV cases and number of interviews needed to identify a new HIV case. Between July 2006 and December 2008, 1049 African Americans, 285 Caribbean-born blacks, and 168 African-born blacks were interviewed for HIV Partner Services. African Americans, Caribbean-born blacks, and African-born blacks had average age of 38, 37, and 43 years and 10.0%, 0.4%, and 0.6% reported intravenous drug use, respectively. All groups had a high proportion of cases with an AIDS-defining CD4 count at HIV diagnosis (30.8%, 34.5%, and 47.9% for African Americans, Africans, and Caribbeans, respectively). The number needed to interview to find one newly diagnosed HIV case was high for all groups (66, 57, and 56 among African Americans, Africans, and Caribbeans, respectively), indicating all had similarly low rates of new HIV case identification. NYC blacks and their partners are benefiting from current Partner Services outreach as PS did identify new HIV cases among partners from all 3 groups. However, further work is needed to improve HIV case finding from Partner Services in these groups, and additional measures to promote early diagnosis are needed.

Outcomes of HIV partner services for people with HIV and STD coinfection versus new HIV diagnosis: implications for HIV prevention strategies.

To the Editor: W read with great interest the article by Peterman et al.1 and applaud their work in highlighting the value of implementation science and program evaluation. In their 4-year long evaluation of data in nearly 60 health jurisdictions, the implementation of STD performance measures was associated with little improvement in STD program performance. Seen as an intervention, performance measures were initially introduced in the hopes of improving performance. The authors state, “We thought that if we measured and reported programs’ performance on specific activities, then program performance would improve. We expected that the low-performing programs would identify factors that contributed to their low performance and take steps to improve.”1 Although the data presented showed that the STD performance measures were not effective, the authors insist, “...we believe it is too early to abandon performance measures.”1 But if not now, when? What is not considered in the piece by Peterman is the work necessary for the local health department. Data must be collected, cleaned, analyzed, and uploaded to Center for Disease Control and Prevention through the performance measures mechanism. As public health resources continue to be lost, maintaining a basic programmatic infrastructure is challenging.2 Continuing to participate in an “intervention” that has been shown to be unproductive not only adds stress to a fragile system without any identified benefit but also undermines the whole point of program evaluation. If data-based decision making is the goal, why are we ignoring these data?

Men Who Have Sex With Men Seek Timely Human Immunodeficiency Virus Confirmation and Care After Rapid Human Immunodeficiency Virus Self-Test: Data From Partner Services Program, New York City

Background The rapid human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) self-test in the United States has expanded opportunities for HIV testing in nonclinical settings which may increase early diagnosis of HIV infection. However, broad application may be limited by the cost of the test and concerns that self-testers who test positive will not seek timely HIV care. Methods We used data from HIV partner services program to compare the sociodemographic characteristics, transmission risk, and clinical stage of persons diagnosed with HIV by report of rapid self-test. Among self-tested persons, we assessed timeliness of seeking definitive testing after self-test and linkage to care. Results From January 2013 to August 2016, 8032 HIV-positive persons were interviewed. Compared with the 7905 persons who did not self-test, self-tested persons were significantly (all P = <0.0001) male (96% vs 78%), white/non-Hispanic (46% vs 16%), men who have sex with men (92% vs 58%), college educated (67% vs 35%), and residing in medium-high income NYC neighborhoods (51% vs 44%). Higher proportions of self-tested (91%) than non–self-tested persons (81%) linked to care within three months of diagnosis. Significantly (P = <0.0001) more persons that self-tested positive (39/44, 89%) than persons that self-tested negative (14/36, 39%) sought laboratory-based HIV test within 1 month of last self-testing; and negative than positive self-tested persons were diagnosed with acute HIV infection (44% vs. 9%, P = <0.0001). Conclusions Our findings suggest that men who have sex with men sought timely HIV confirmatory testing and linkage to care after self-test. However, the cost of self-test kit may be an important barrier to its wide adoption across sociodemographic groups.