The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) recently published a nearly $21 million funding opportunity to strengthen and expand HIV services in programs that provide substance use disorder treatment to medically underserved racial and ethnic minority individuals with or experiencing risk for HIV.

The notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) from SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) is titled Minority AIDS Initiative: Substance Use Disorder Treatment for Racial/Ethnic Minority Populations at High Risk for HIV/AIDS. The NOFO is supported by the Minority AIDS Initiative (MAI) and will support up to 42 programs with awards of up to $500,000 per year for up to five years. At least five awards will be made to American Indian/Alaska Native tribes or tribal organizations pending sufficient application volume. Applications are due May 22, 2023.

Purpose and Scope of NOFO

The purpose of this program is to increase engagement in care for medically underserved racial and ethnic minority individuals with substance use disorders (SUDs) and/or co-occurring SUDs and mental health conditions (COD) who are at risk for or living with HIV. Award recipients will be expected to take a syndemic approach to SUD, HIV, and viral hepatitis by providing evidence-based SUD treatment and recovery supports as well as HIV testing, linkage to care or prevention services, case management, and other supports to medically underserved racial and ethnic individuals with or at risk for HIV. With this program, SAMHSA aims to reduce the prevalence of substance use disorders, HIV, and viral hepatitis while increasing access and linkage to HIV treatment for people in the population of focus.

New Required and Allowable Activities Support Syndemic Response

Though similar to prior rounds of CSAT MAI funding, this NOFO incorporates several new required activities for grantees, including:

• Providing referral to post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) services.
• Developing a continuous outreach strategy with input from the population of focus to include individuals from medically underserved racial and ethnic communities disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS and HIV-related disparities.
• Hiring staff who represent the population of the community being served.

Reflecting the syndemic approach expected of grantees, this NOFO also:

• Requires hepatitis B and hepatitis C testing for all clients and authorizes use of up to 5 percent of the total award for viral hepatitis screening and linkage to care activities.
• Authorizes using no more than 5 percent of the total award on harm reduction services and/or supplies.
• Authorizes using no more than 5 percent of the total award on screening and testing participants for sexually transmitted infections (STI) and referral to treatment services as appropriate.
• Authorizes using award resources, including funds or staff, for mpox activities conducted in conjunction with SAMHSA supported work(PDF, 228KB).

In addition, this NOFO also authorizes several new allowable activities, such as:

• Providing Peer Recovery Support Services designed and delivered by individuals who have lived experience with SUDs and recovery. as well as HIV treatment, HIV prevention, and/or hepatitis C treatment and recovery.
• Incorporating Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U) messaging in communication strategies.
• Providing trauma-informed, non-judgmental, culturally appropriate substance use disorder treatment for long-term survivors and people aging with HIV with a substance use disorder.

These and other elements of this NOFO support implementation of several of SAMHSA’s action items in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy’s Federal Implementation Plan.

Learn more and access the full application package on SAMHSA’s page for the Minority AIDS Initiative: Substance Use Disorder Treatment for Racial/Ethnic Minority Populations at High Risk for HIV/AIDS NOFO.