Use peers, home HIV tests to reach patients at risk

the Clinical Advisor take:

Researchers in Oakland, California, are utilizing OraQuick, a home-test kit that can detect HIV, and social networks to reach patients at greater risk for HIV.

Marguerita Lightfoot, director of the Center for Aids Prevention Studies (CAPS) at the University of California, San Francisco and colleagues, named high prices and a lack of discretion as two of the major contributors keeping at-risk patients from being tested.

The Oakland-based prevention program will use social networks to reach hard-to-identify men who haven’t been tested for HIV but may be at risk. The target group is men who have sex with men, mainly in the African American and Hispanic communities.

Ten chosen patients, called peer navigators, will receive in-home tests kits and training, and then they will be asked to give the kits to five of their friends. “These peer navigators will not only help to reach people that the study would otherwise not be able to contact, but will be trained to help those who test positively,” explained Lightfoot.

The effectiveness of the program relies on at least 50 people tested in each round of the two to three rounds of the study. If the strategy is successful, the department will be more likely to use it in the future, said Lightfoot.