The schedule presented here is subject to change as the agenda is finalized.
StayWell Health Center serves as a leading responder to the overlapping syndemics of HIV, hepatitis C, STIs, and social determinants of health in the Waterbury, Connecticut metro area. Through a status-neutral approach, StayWell ensures that all individuals—regardless of HIV status—are connected to comprehensive prevention or treatment services without stigma or delay.
Black women at are increased risk HIV of infection compared to women in general. In 2022 in Alabama, over half of HIV people living with HIV were Black, almost a quarter were women, and 1 in 5 were unaware of their status. This data supports a need for HIV prevention interventions among youth and adults in the state.
This 20-minute workshop explores how cultural competency and community-based participatory practice (CBPP) models are being implemented to center community voices and ensure public health interventions are both relevant and affirming. Strategies include peer-led engagement, wellness-themed mini-balls, and house-based dialogues that allow for honest conversations around HIV, stigma, and care. Participants will be introduced to the CBPP model and the Cultural Competence Continuum as guiding frameworks for equity-driven outreach.
This session will introduce a pleasure-based approach to sexual heath and provide guidance on asking affirming, inclusive questions for patients who are queer, trans, poly, or engaged in kink. We will discuss current treatment options to managed decreased libido, painful frontal/vaginal sex, and erectile dysfunction. We will review opportunities for a collaborative treatment approach with mental health and primary care providers in combining mental health medications with HIV prevention and treatment medications, including injectables.
Provide creative ways to go beyond the clinic walls to reach the underserved population. To teach individuals "Out of the box thinking" to get them introduced to PreP and HIV treatment.
This session explores how sex-positive, pleasure-centered approaches enhance HIV and STI prevention – especially for people living with HIV and communities greatly impacted by HIV. We discuss the benefits of this approach and highlight an innovative initiative based in community voices and engagement: San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH)’s Have Good Sex campaign, which promotes sexual empowerment, inclusivity, and self-directed care through home-based testing. Centering the needs of communities disproportionately impacted by HIV, this program affirms sexual health and well-being through messaging that centers pleasure and autonomy.
This session will share retrospective results from SHIF’s 8 Year history, as well as SHIF’s community engagement strategies, developed to intentionally address the common mismatch between public health programs and community needs that often hamper impact. This session will both describe SHIF’s robust community engagement strategies, as well as recommendations to adapt such strategies for similar programming.
This presentation will provide an in-depth overview of our agency’s innovative street outreach strategies for HIV prevention and treatment across Texas. We focus on connecting with populations often labeled as “hard to reach” through a combination of trauma-informed care and peer navigation, designed to foster trust and engagement. Our approach prioritizes immediacy—once we identify individuals in need, we work to link them to HIV care or initiate PrEP within 24 hours, and often on the same day. We are leading the effort for prompt diagnosis and linkage to care in Texas when individuals in many areas have to wait days, even weeks, for a doctor's appointment.
The Church Needs HR: Healing and Health Resources for Queer Faith Spaces is an educational and advocacy initiative reframing the role of religion in LGBTQIA health. While public health spaces have made progress in HIV prevention and harm reduction, they often neglect the spiritual realities of queer individuals—especially those from Black and Brown communities—who continue to experience both harm and hope within faith-based contexts.
This session explores the experience of Us Helping Us while equipping participants with the tools and strategies to overcome barriers to HIV prevention by developing effective, community-centered PrEP services. Facilitators will guide attendees through experiential learning and hands-on activities, demonstrating how to establish partnerships, develop tailored PrEP protocols, and address common challenges such as client engagement, stigma, and resource constraints in a resource-limited setting. By the end of this interactive session, participants will be prepared to transform their respective organizations into a "one-stop shop" that eliminates access barriers and contributes to the goal of ending the HIV epidemic by 2030.
This session explores the use of interactive storytelling within community theater as a tool to engage audiences on HIV and other STI prevention, focusing on PrEP usage and combating social determinants of health. The session examines and challenges the effectiveness of storytelling in raising awareness, changing attitudes, and promoting health behaviors among diverse communities.
In 2023, 1,686 people were newly diagnosed with HIV in New York City, with Brooklyn reporting the highest rate and 19% concurrent AIDS diagnoses. To address these disparities, the NYU Langone Family Health Centers’ Community Medicine Program (CMP)—a collaboration with the NYC shelter system—integrated medical services directly within shelters to improve outcomes among unstably housed individuals. After piloting a part-time patient navigator to support HIV-positive patients with linkage and retention in care, the program demonstrated early success and secured a grant in December 2024 to expand into a status-neutral navigation model.
What happens when wisdom meets innovation, and lived experience meets digital fluency? This dynamic, intergenerational and interracial session explores how people across decades and racial identities navigate dating, disclosure, and desire in the age of PrEP, U=U, and mobile technology.
This study highlights the importance of culturally responsive, age-appropriate interventions and underscores the need for comprehensive structural strategies to reduce disparities and promote equitable sexual health outcomes for aging populations.
This session explores how CTCA blends peer-led support, expressive arts, cultural rituals, and critical consciousness to foster emotional wellness, increase HIV care retention, and support prevention. Participants will engage with evidence-based strategies and real-world examples demonstrating CTCA’s success in improving health outcomes while affirming identity and restoring community connection.
This study examines media bias and stigma in Florida news coverage of HIV-related arrests from 2010 to 2020. A systematic content analysis of 129 news articles revealed disproportionate racial and gender portrayals, with Black men overrepresented as perpetrators despite data showing White women constitute the majority of those arrested. Findings indicate widespread use of stigmatizing language and sensationalized reporting, which amplify public misconceptions about HIV transmission and criminalization.
This presentation will provide an overview of the current landscape of crystal meth use among Black queer men and examine the contextual and cultural factors that contribute to substance use patterns and treatment disparities. Drawing from clinical experience, research, and community-based insights, this session highlights strategies for delivering affirming, culturally competent, and trauma-informed care.
Understanding that the complexity and segmentation of the healthcare system can pose unique challenges to providing medical care in non-traditional settings in the United States, a formative evaluation was conducted to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness, and whether enrolled clients completed the care cascade measured by four performance indicators: linkage to care, treatment initiation, treatment completion, and achievement of SVR-12.
This session will review the project design and provide an overview of preliminary project outcomes, specifically focusing on the unique role State Health Agencies are equipped to fulfill when seeking to generate registries, verify eligibility, and engage individuals. Finally, the session will discuss how these activities have informed the development of a syndemic framework aimed at ending HCV with strategies focused on disrupting transmission in real time while also addressing HIV and STIs.
People who use drugs (PWUDs) face structural barriers to access prevention and care for hepatitis C (HCV) infection. While many inpatient substance use treatment programs (ISUTPs) often screen for HCV, few provide treatment, leading to missed opportunities for care. This presentation will introduce a client-centered telehealth model, initiating HCV treatment during detoxification and rehabilitation to enhance early engagement and ensure continuity of care.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains a serious public health concern in the U.S., especially among high-risk groups. While social support is thought to influence health outcomes, its role in HCV diagnosis is less clear. Using pre-pandemic NHANES data (2017–March 2020), this study explored whether limitations in social support measured by self-reported access to routine care and inability to obtain needed medical care were associated with HCV screening outcomes among high-risk adults.
This presentation addresses the intersection of issues in health equity and justice, versus health advocacy and policy, to identify and contradict the significant misdirection and fatal errors of science in recent opioid prescribing guidelines of the US CDC and Veterans Administration with a critical review of published clinical and demographic data on safety and effectiveness of prescription opioid analgesic pain relievers.
Recent research has highlighted the significant success the harm reduction approach has had in reducing death and disease from opioid use, however these programs often rest on assumptions of access to treatment for infectious diseases, mental health conditions, and basic primary care services that are often not accessible to individuals who use drugs. Access is limited by stigma, transportation issues, complexity of health conditions, and many other barriers, and this life saving treatment is often unavailable to the most vulnerable individuals.
Contingency Management (CM) is a behavioral intervention option for stimulant use that involves immediate, tangible rewards to individuals to reinforce positive self-identified behavior change. In 2023, in response to rising rates of stimulant overdose deaths, California became the first state in the U.S. to offer CM as a benefit through public insurance. Having already embraced CM over two decades prior through the Positive Reinforcement Opportunity Project (PROP)—originally designed for men who have sex with men to reduce sexually transmitted infections through reducing methamphetamine use—San Francisco was well positioned to expand this model, and over the last two years expanded CM to more than a dozen programs throughout the city benefitting diverse populations.
This conference is supported, in part, by independent educational grants from ineligible companies. A full list of supporters is available here. All accredited content has been developed and delivered in accordance with the ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence and the criteria of Joint Accreditation for Interprofessional Continuing Education™, and is free of commercial bias.