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. 2022 Apr 15;89(5):498-504.
doi: 10.1097/QAI.0000000000002904.

The Organization, Content, and Case-Finding Effectiveness of HIV Assisted Partner Services in High HIV Morbidity Areas of the United States

Matthew R Golden  1   2   3   4 , Brett AugsJoost  5 , Melverta Bender  6 , Kathleen A Brady  7 , Lyell S Collins  8 , Julia D Dombrowski  1   2   3   4 , Jamila Ealey  9 , Christopher Garcia  10 , Dan George  11 , Bernard Gilliard  12 , Terrainia Harris  13 , Cynthia Johnson  14 , Christine M Khosropour  1   3   4 , Sophia F Rumanes  15 , Karen Surita  16 , Irina Tabidze  17 , Chi-Chi N Udeagu  18 , Cherie Walker-Baban  19 , Natalie O Cramer  20
Affiliations

The Organization, Content, and Case-Finding Effectiveness of HIV Assisted Partner Services in High HIV Morbidity Areas of the United States

Matthew R Golden et al. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. .

Abstract

Background: The contemporary effectiveness of assisted partner notification services (APS) in the United States is uncertain.

Setting: State and local jurisdictions in the United States that reported ≥300 new HIV diagnoses in 2018 and were participating in the Ending the Epidemic Initiative.

Methods: The study surveyed health departments to collect data on the content and organization of APS and aggregate data on APS outcomes for 2019. Analyses defined contact and case-finding indices (i.e., sex partners named and newly diagnosed per index case receiving APS) and estimated staff case-finding productivity.

Results: Sixteen (84%) of 19 jurisdictions responded to the survey, providing APS outcome data for 14 areas (74%). Most health departments routinely integrated APS with linkage of cases and partners to HIV care (88%) and pre-exposure prophylaxis (88%). A total of 19,164 persons were newly diagnosed with HIV in the 14 areas. Staff initiated APS investigations on 14,203 cases (74%) and provided APS to 9937 cases (52%). Cases named 6799 partners (contact index = 0.68), of whom 1841 (27%) had previously diagnosed HIV, 2202 (32%) tested HIV negative, 541 (8% of named and 20% of tested partners) were newly diagnosed with HIV, and 2215 (33%) were not known to have tested. Across jurisdictions, the case-finding index was 0.054 (median = 0.05, range 0.015-0.12). Health departments employed 292 full-time equivalent staff to provide APS. These staff identified a median of 2.0 new HIV infections per staff per year. APS accounted for 2.8% of new diagnoses in 2019.

Conclusions: HIV case-finding resulting from APS in the United States is low.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

References

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