World AIDS Day, established in 1988 and noticed yearly on December 1, is a day to commemorate the 42 million individuals globally who’ve died from AIDS-related sicknesses for the reason that begin of the epidemic, and honor the greater than 39 million individuals together with 1.2 million Americans, residing with HIV world wide. This yr’s World AIDS Day theme, Collective Motion: Maintain and Speed up HIV Progress, serves as an necessary reminder that we should stay steadfast in our dedication to stop new HIV infections and supply important companies to all individuals residing with HIV. Nonetheless, regardless of the developments we’ve made world wide and in the US, our progress has been uneven, and challenges stay. In too many communities, restricted public consciousness, lack of entry, and sparse accomplice engagement proceed to create obstacles to complete HIV prevention and remedy.
SAMHSA’s mission is to guide public well being and repair supply efforts that promote psychological well being, stop substance misuse, and supply remedies and helps to foster restoration whereas making certain equitable entry and higher outcomes. SAMHSA’s grant recipients work to deal with the syndemic of HIV, viral hepatitis, substance use issues, and psychological sickness. At SAMHSA, we’re dedicated to constructing on the numerous progress that has been made during the last four-plus a long time of the collective nationwide HIV response and persevering with to enhance our programming primarily based on ongoing evidence-based analysis on prevention, remedy, and implementation science, in addition to pragmatic classes discovered from SAMHSA-funded grant recipients within the discipline.
New in 2024, SAMHSA awarded $9.6 million in grants to pilot progressive approaches to satisfy the behavioral well being wants of people who find themselves both are in danger for or residing with HIV/AIDS. These pilots embody:
- $5.4 million for the Minority AIDS Initiative (MAI): SUD Prevention and Treatment Pilot Program, an progressive pilot that braids funding from the Heart for Substance Abuse Prevention and Heart for Substance Abuse Therapy, to supply a continuum of care strategy that gives substance use prevention, substance use dysfunction (SUD) remedy, and infectious illness prevention and remedy companies together with HIV, viral hepatitis, and STI prevention, and linkage to remedy companies for disproportionately impacted populations, together with racial and ethnic people susceptible to a SUD and/or psychological well being situation and HIV/AIDS.
- $2.6 million for the Minority AIDS Initiative: Integrated Behavioral Health and HIV Care for Unsheltered Populations Pilot Project, which pilots an built-in transportable medical care strategy that mixes behavioral well being and HIV remedy and prevention companies to individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
- $1.6 million for the Syndemic Approach to Preventing HIV and Substance Use Among Racial and Ethnic Minority Communities, which seeks to advance fairness in well being outcomes for racial and ethnic minority communities, particularly all Black feminine identities, together with cisgender, transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer/fluid people within the South who’re experiencing disparities associated to HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis (VH), sexually transmitted infections (STIs), substance use and substance use issues (SUDs), and/or psychological well being circumstances.
In 2023, SAMHSA launched its 2023 – 2026 Strategic Plan, which prioritizes integrating behavioral and bodily well being care, together with HIV prevention, testing, and linkage to remedy into SAMHSA’s behavioral well being grant portfolio. The MAI-funded grant applications deal with offering prevention sources to people who find themselves in danger for HIV, diagnosing individuals who have no idea they’ve HIV, and linking individuals with HIV to remedy and are in alignment with the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) (PDF | 1.8 MB), mirror SAMHSA’s commitments specified by our contribution to the NHAS Federal Implementation Plan (PDF | 707 KB), and are in alignment with the objectives of the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. (EHE) initiative, of which SAMHSA is a proud contributing company. SAMHSA additionally has contributed to the Viral Hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infections Strategic Plans, which HHS is now within the means of revising).
In line with the theme of 2024’s World AIDS Day SAMHSA is recommitting to sustaining and accelerating our efforts in the direction of progress on HIV. We might additionally prefer to thank our employees, grantees, federal companions, well being care suppliers, and the substance use and psychological well being group in working towards our shared objective of ending the HIV epidemic in the US. Thanks for the work you do to save lots of lives and enhance the well being of the individuals of America.
