The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has awarded Howard Brown Health Center (HBHC), University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) and Project VIDA $3.8 million to help fund a new five-year collaborative HIV targeted testing program aimed at Chicago’s most vulnerable populations that include Black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women.
The targeted testing partnership, which is in its initial planning stage, will focus on bolstering testing rates among African-American and Latino MSM and transgender women in underserved areas and non-traditional spaces.
Also, this testing partnership aims to serve as an way for individuals to be linked to other forms of health care such as hormone therapy, HIV treatment, primary care, pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP and PEP, respectively), behavioral health and case management.
This grant is part of a wider CDC initiative that granted a total of $216 million to 90 community-based organizations nationwide in hopes to deliver effective HIV prevention strategies to those at greatest risk for HIV transmission.