RYAN WHITE CARE ACT
ANNUAL DATA SUMMARY

Introduction

The Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act provides funding to States, cities, and public or private nonprofit entities to improve the quality and availability of care for medically underserved individuals and families affected by HIV/AIDS. Reflecting the diversity of communities across the country, CARE Act funds may be used to develop, organize and deliver an array of medical, health, and social support services to people living with HIV/AIDS. Within this range of services, the CARE Act provides financial assistance for services that, otherwise, would not be available to these vulnerable populations.

Every year, recipients of CARE Act funds are required to report to the Health Resources and Services Administration’s HIV/AIDS Bureau (HRSA/HAB) how those funds have been used to provide services to low-income and underserved individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS. The Ryan White CARE Act Data Report (CADR) is the annual reporting instrument that must be completed by agencies and organizations receiving funds to describe: 1) characteristics of their organization; 2) the number and characteristics of clients they served; 3) the types of services provided; and 4) the number of clients receiving these services and the number of client visits by type of service. Agencies/organizations that provide counseling and testing services report on the number of individuals receiving these services. In addition, providers of ambulatory/outpatient medical care provide some information on the outcomes of their services.

This annual summary contains five sections describing how CARE Act funds have been used in communities around the Nation. The document includes data from 2,696 provider agencies/organizations receiving CARE Act funds that reported CADR data in 2002. These providers received funding from one or more of the following CARE Act programs: Title I, Title II (with ADAP reported separately), Title III-EIS, Title IV, and/or Title IV-Youth.

Given the nature of the CADR, the specific CARE Act Program (Title I, II, III, IV or IV-Youth) that funded particular client services can not be determined. Although service organizations may be funded by multiple CARE Act programs, these providers are required to complete only one CADR that includes information on all services provided regardless of the funding source. Please remember that CADR Sections 1 and 2 report the characteristics of providers and clients, respectively. By contrast, CADR Sections 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 describe the types of services provided by CARE Act funded service organizations and the number of clients receiving these services regardless of the Ryan White CARE Act funding stream.

The utility of CADR data is limited by duplicated client counts. CADR data as collected and reported by individual providers are generally unduplicated. However, since an individual client may receive services from more than one provider, there is no way of knowing that the counts of individuals served by one provider are not also included in the counts of another service provider. Thus, aggregating provider data to the national level results in duplicate client counts.