This session 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 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.
Cool Kids Carry Narcan is a rural overdose prevention initiative led by Berkshire Harm Reduction, a program of Berkshire Health Systems in western Massachusetts. Designed to address geographic and racial inequities in naloxone access, the project currently installs and maintains 124 public NaloxBoxes while pairing distribution with community training and stigma-reduction campaigns.
To address the intersecting epidemics of HIV, Hepatitis C (HCV), and syphilis in Miami-Dade County, Baptist Health South Florida (BHSF) expanded its innovative Electronic Health Record (EHR) syndemic screening model across multiple emergency departments in 2024. Building on the success of Homestead Hospital (HH) and West Kendall Baptist Hospital’s (WKBH) routine HIV/HCV screening program, Baptist Main Hospital (BMH) and South Miami Hospital (SMH) implemented scalable workflows and smart syphilis screening algorithms into their EHR. This expansion was supported by strategic public-private partnerships with hospital leadership and the Florida Department of Health in Miami-Dade County (DOH-Miami-Dade) which provided a dedicated Disease Intervention Specialists (DIS) to ensure timely linkage to care and prevention services.
Understanding how BMSM, who represent less than 1% of the U.S. population, but account for over one-third of new HIV infections annually, practice seroadaptation can inform new interventions to improve their engagement in HIV services. To this end, we conducted a qualitative study (called the “PhotoUStudy”), which was guided by a conceptual model, the BMSM Intersectional Identity Framework Over the Life Course (BMSM Identity Framework). Thirty-six BMSM who lived in/accessed health services in Washington, D.C., aged 18-65, were recruited into a five-day photovoice activity and follow-up interview.
Participants will learn “how-to” techniques for initiating and guiding conversations about sexual history through a lens of prevention, risk reduction, and patient-centered care. The presentation will emphasize creating a safe, respectful, and non-judgmental environment that encourages patients to ask questions and engage openly. Special attention will be given to the unique challenges faced in rural communities, where stigma, limited resources, and lack of formal education can further inhibit discussions about sexual health.
In collaboration with Columbia Psychiatry and New York Public Library, the community mental health project was created to address the impact of mental health on the Black and Afro-Latino communities in NYC, especially during and right after the COVID-19 pandemic. The intervention aims to engage the community in discussion around mental health and thus minimize stigma and advocate for innovative strategies to increase the utilization of mental health services within the community.
This session will provide an overview of how Deaf Community Advocacy Network (Deaf C.A.N.!) Deaf HIV Program addresses the unique challenges of PWLH who are Deaf, Deafblind, and Hard of Hearing navigating Ryan White Services. Through provider assessments and cultural competency training, client assessments and workshops to improve health literacy on HIV prevention and HIV treatment, and workshops for interpreters to increase their understanding of ever growing HIV terminology such as viral load suppression and U=U, Deaf C.A.N.! has expanded their case management services from 7 counties in the Detroit Metropolitan Area to the entire state of Michigan, increased partnerships, and improved client satisfaction
The Empowerment Circle is a peer-led recovery support group serving individuals impacted by substance use, trauma, HIV, and systemic health disparities across the broader community—including LGBTQ+ populations, returning citizens, older adults, and people with lived experience of homelessness. What makes this model unique is its inclusive approach: while centering recovery, it intentionally brings together diverse participants in a shared healing space.
Queen City Harm Reduction (QCHR) is the only organization expressly centered around harm reduction principles and syringe access in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, where the city of Charlotte is based, and seeks to minimize the harms associated with substance use and other intersecting conditions such as sex work, justice involvement, and homelessness. QCHR proactively educates peers and the community on drug user health promoting prevention of infectious disease, overdose, and compassionate care.
This session explores the emerging evidence supporting yoga and other healing modalities as a complementary harm reduction tool, particularly in underserved or high-risk populations. Drawing on interdisciplinary research, community-based programs, and trauma-informed frameworks, it underscores alternative healing modalities potential to serve not as a replacement for clinical treatment but as an accessible, empowering adjunct that supports individual agency, healing, and long-term well-being.
Holy Cross Health in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is advancing health equity through a comprehensive, community-based approach to HIV prevention and care, STI and Hepatitis C screening, and LGBTQ+ health. Broward County remains one of the nation’s HIV epicenters, with 579 new diagnoses in 2022, far exceeding the national average. Despite this, 96.2 percent of people living with HIV in the county know their status, and 80.8 percent are linked to care within one month. Holy Cross Health’s initiatives, such as community outreach, HIV self-testing, and culturally competent education, are designed to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ individuals who are disproportionately affected by these conditions. The program is led by community advocates and LGBTQ+ healthcare professionals who step beyond traditional clinical roles to engage directly with the community. This session will explore the program’s design, implementation, and measurable impact, offering a replicable model for other health systems.
This SYNC session will lead attendees through the OUTSafe curriculum and resources, offering providers in the field an essential tool to address older adult victimization and a guide for creating safe spaces and safer institutions for older LGBTQ+ adults.
This presentation explores strategies for effective LGBTQIA+ health promotion and community engagement amid a shifting sociopolitical landscape. Drawing on recent case studies, grassroots initiatives, and community-led research, we examine the ways in which LGBTQIA+ individuals and organizations are responding to policy rollbacks and social hostility. We highlight inclusive health interventions, mutual aid networks, and coalition-building as mechanisms for advocacy and care.
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.
The employment landscape for PLWH in the Hartford Transitional Grant Area (TGA) presents significant challenges. According to the 2022 Statewide Needs Assessment Survey, 54.46% of PLWH were unemployed, with 59.46% unemployment within the TGA. Among respondents, 78% of individuals over 50 lacked access to career and life skills training, limiting their ability to secure stable, fulfilling employment.
In 2022 in Alabama, youth age 13-24 made up the majority of chlamydia and gonorrhea cases, and nearly a quarter of new HIV diagnoses, illustrating the need for STI prevention efforts aimed at this population. Incarcerated youth represent a group more vulnerable to HIV/STI infection than youth in general. The UAB Family Clinic has partnered with the Alabama Department of Youth Services to provide HIV/STI education confidential HIV testing to youth held in detention facilities across the state of Alabama. In 2024, the UAB Family Clinic provided comprehensive HIV/STI education to approximately 350 youth across 3 sites, 268 of whom opted to be tested for HIV.
Transgender Empathy Training is an interactive, community-centered educational program designed to cultivate cultural humility, deepen understanding, and expand institutional capacity to support transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people. Grounded in trauma-informed care, intersectional analysis, and lived experience, this training moves beyond basic terminology and policy compliance to build genuine human connection and sustained allyship.
This presentation examines how housing precarity and systemic bias shape clinical encounters with queer adolescents of color. Drawing from direct clinical practice, supervision, and education within urban community settings, it highlights the ways traditional care models often replicate inequities through rigid policies, pathologizing language, and a lack of intersectional awareness.
The San Francisco Principles 2020 builds on the 1983 Denver Principles to highlight the critical needs of long-term HIV/AIDS survivors (LTS) as they age with HIV. This important statement brings attention to the linked problems of aging, unfair health access, and how systems often ignore marginalized people within the LTS community.
This session will showcase how AIDS United’s Melanated Movement Fund grantees are responding to the needs of aging Black women across the diaspora by implementing innovative stigma-reductive and community-engagement approaches in two distinct communities.
Information on credits offered to SYNC participants for attending institutes, sessions, and plenaries — live or in-person — is available here.
Commercial Support Acknowledgement
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.
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This session 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.
