Abstract
Abstract
Background
Merely having the tools to end HIV is insufficient. Effectively ending the epidemic necessitates addressing barriers that impede engagement in biomedical and behavioral prevention and wide scale implementation and utilization of existing interventions. This qualitative study identifies suggestions for increasing access to, engagement in, and impact of HIV prevention among women living in cities in high HIV burden counties in the eastern US.
Methods
Data analyzed for the current study were collected via a qualitative sub-study within the HIV Prevention Trials Network Study 064 (HPTN 064), a multisite observational cohort study designed to estimate HIV incidence among women residing in communities with elevated HIV prevalence who also reported personal or partner characteristics associated with increased risk of HIV acquisition. Focus group and interview participants in the qualitative sub-study (N = 288) were from four cities in the eastern US.
Results
Thematic analyses revealed four themes describing women’s most frequently stated ideas for improving prevention efforts: 1) Promote Multilevel Empowerment, 2) Create Engaging Program Content, 3) Build “Market Demand”, and 4) Ensure Accessibility. We conducted additional analyses to identify contradictory patterns in the data, which revealed an additional three themes: 1) Address Structural Risk Factors, 2) Increase Engagement via Pleasure Promotion, 3) Expand Awareness of and Access to Prevention Resources.
Conclusions
Findings may be useful for enhancing women’s engagement in and uptake of behavioral and biomedical HIV prevention resources, improving policy, and addressing multilevel risk factors.
Trial registration
Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT00995176, prospectively registered.
Funder
North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
National Institute on Drug Abuse
National Institute of Mental Health
Center for AIDS Research, Emory University
Centers for Innovative Research to Control AIDS, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
University of North Carolina Clinical Trials Unit
Center for AIDS Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Emory University (EU) HIV/AIDS Clinical Trials Unit
Emory University Clinical and Translational Science Award
The Terry Beirn Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS Clinical Trials Unit
The Johns Hopkins Adult AIDS Clinical Trial Unit
The Johns Hopkins Clinical and Translational Science Award
Emory University Laney Graduate School Robert W. Woodruff Pre-doctoral Fellowship
Health for Nevada, Health Disparities Research Initiative
HPTN Scholars Progam
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
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