The south lags behind much of the rest of the nation on a number of key outcomes including viral suppression and survival among people living with HIV. To help address this, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has announced a funding opportunity for a new program: Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Building Care and Prevention Capacity: Addressing the HIV Care Continuum in Southern Metropolitan Areas.

Funded by the Secretary’s Minority AIDS Initiative Fund (SMAIF), this program will support one organization to serve as the Coordination and Technical Assistance Center providing technical assistance (TA) and capacity building/service delivery resources to four Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Part A jurisdictions located in southern metropolitan areas serving key minority populations to improve outcomes along the HIV care continuum. The southern U.S. bears a disproportionate burden of newly diagnosed cases of HIV and rates of infection.

The goals of the program are to implement innovative service delivery models that result in improvements in the jurisdictions’ HIV care continuum for minority populations and to increase capacity to serve minority populations with a focus on men who have sex with men (MSM), youth, cisgender and transgender women, and people who inject drugs, resulting in improved health outcomes along the HIV care continuum.

In collaboration with HRSA’s HIV/AIDS Bureau (HAB), the Center’s activities will include:

• Providing start-up and ongoing TA to four Part A jurisdictions in southern metropolitan areas on a wide range of programmatic activities that have potential to positively impact the HIV care continuum in each jurisdiction by reducing disparities among minority populations.
• Providing sub-awards to expand evidence-based/informed interventions within a jurisdiction.
• Providing ongoing consultation on the use of sub-award funds to help with start-up of new programming.
• Providing TA to increase the identification of newly diagnosed individuals and access points for entry into HIV care and prevention services among newly screened, newly identified and previously identified but out-of-care minority people living with HIV.

The Center will also collaborate with HRSA/HAB and other federal agencies on regional activities and collate and share information on a wide range of effective programmatic interventions.

Applications are due July 12, 2016. The application package is available on Grants.gov.

This program is part of ongoing efforts to address the SMAIF priority of improving health outcomes for racial and ethnic minority populations living with HIV.