Community-empowered interventions that are designed, implemented, and evaluated in partnership with the target, community are associated with greater reductions in HIV risk and improved health services.

Centering is an evidence-based, community-empowered, group healthcare model originating from prenatal care that has been successful adapted for sickle cell and diabetes treatments. Our formative research and strong collaboration with community partners enabled us to use ADAPT-ITT as an HIV intervention adaptation model, preparing us to adapt to Centering for HIV prevention, PrEP adherence, and to support the needs of Black women.

The Study At a Glance Heading link

Chicago is an HIV epicenter, and Getting to Zero (GTZ) new HIV infections by 2030 is a public health priority. Black cisgender, heterosexual women (Black women) in Chicago have rates of HIV acquisition over 10 times the rate of white women, and four times the rate of Hispanic women, making Black women a priority population. Although Black women comprise 37% of Chicago’s population, they account for 79% of HIV infections among women in Chicago. Improving access to and uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among Black women is essential to ending the US HIV epidemic and reducing new infections by 90% by 2030.

Innovative prevention methods for engaging Black women in PrEP care are needed. Most PrEP prevention programs target men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women however, few have been designed to meet the needs of Black cisgender women. PrEP is an empowering HIV prevention tool because it is user-controlled and requires no partner negotiation making it highly appropriate for use among high-risk, HIV-negative Black women. However, barriers, including HIV stigma, racial inequity, and financial constraints, keep Black women from accessing HIV/STI prevention information, services, and treatment, including PrEP initiation and adherence.

This study will use the ADAPT-ITT framework to collaboratively and iteratively adapt a community-empowered, group model of care called Centering Healthcare to suit the needs of Black women taking PrEP.