The IHS Minority AIDS Inititative (MAI)

content relevant to the MAI:
FY06 Initiatives (ongoing) FY07 Proposals FY08 Proposals IHS MAI History (2000-2005)

FY07 Proposals (Approved)

The MAI funding has continued for the IHS with various goals, objectives and outcomes that encompass a wide range of services and capacity building. Currently, there are five approved MAI projects for FY07:

Behavioral Health Trainings

Developed for I/T/U professional staff and healthcare providers as well as a separate arm of funding for AI/AN ‘traditional service providers’ to discuss cultural and traditional practices with HIV/AIDS and who are currently working with HIV/AIDS patients. Each training will allow for a limited amount of full scholarships for participants to attend.  Trainings will be executed throughout calendar year 2007 and 2008.

The overall goal of this two-day regional training is to build capacity in HIV/AIDS prevention efforts and across the continuum of care for American Indian/Alaska Native populations within the context of behavioral health. This includes training of IHS, tribal, and urban healthcare workers. This training will expand understanding of HIV/AIDS as a Native community and behavioral health issues and link successful evidence-based research with practical approaches within the appropriate cultural context . It will emphasize multiple facets of behavioral health, behavioral health communication and traditional healing as complimentary approaches to existing clinical approaches and address the following topics: background and historical data, risk and resiliency, stigma and discrimination and readiness for rapid testing.

A second component to the DBH Initiative as requested by the traditionalists will be to provide a Task Force Workgroup and Summit for TSP (pending funding). The culmination of two task force meetings will conclude with a National Summit designed to help further define the role of the traditionalist within HIV/AIDS and for healing of the AI/AN population.

Provided is a link to more information surrounding the Regional Behavioral Health trainings.

The HIV Center of Excellence (CoE) in Phoenix Indian Medical Center

Created an HIV/AIDS telemedicine support network for health care providers in Indian Health Service, Tribal and Urban settings. The objectives of this initiative are to expand the quality and availability of HIV/AIDS communication, training, support, and expert consultation through the use of telemedicine technology for health care providers in Indian Health Service, Tribal, and Urban (I/T/U) settings.

By providing a portfolio of distance communication, training, support and expert consultation services via the IHS telemedicine network, we believe we will be able to improve communication between current health care providers and increase the number of and geographic location of providers who are able to deliver the highest quality health care to the widely disbursed and highly mobile American Indian and Alaska Native patient population living with HIV/AIDS. Telemedicine support will be used to support OIT in their efforts to continually review new trends/advice in the HIV/AIDS world and make recommendations for modifications to existing software.   The technology made possible through meetings/ teleconferences and review will facilitate this. Link to HIV CoE: http://www.ihs.gov/medicalprograms/aids/hiv-coe-regional-coordinators.asp

Division of Epidemiology and Surveillance

Continuation of early detection surveillance and enhanced screening for increases in HIV Infection. To develop a national "early warning" system to detect rapid increases in the rate of HIV infection for high risk AI/AN population. Additionally, the epidemiology team in Albuquerque conducts site visits and researches implementation challenges, gathers local HIV/AIDS surveillance data, and collaborates with the Centers for Disease Control on multiple initiatives to enhance quality and quantity of AI/AN data.

Infection rates in the general sexually-active population and recognized highest-risk subgroups will be tracked through implementation of surveillance and enhancement of screening. We routinely will monitor HIV prevalence among prenatal women through the electronic surveillance component of our innovative computerized provider education/surveillance program, ID Web (previously-funded through MAI), in coordination with the newly-instituted Clinical Reporting System (CRS) used to monitor HIV screening among prenatal women for the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA). The agency proposes to implement the following FY07 strategies:

• Develop an estimate of the burden of HIV infection among prenatal and highest-risk populations
• Continue to develop and promote HIV screening in pilot sites
• Provide technical support to OIT as needed (to include, but not limited to) review of screening high-risk populations, including development of a new CRS measure

The Indian Health Service (IHS) will also survey health providers and patients to identify and address barriers to implementation of universal HIV screening as per new CDC guidelines. A survey will be used for health providers and for patients. The survey design will use questions from existing CDC (and/or other nationally recognized) questionnaires to allow for comparisons, with some modifications made for AI/AN population. The survey questions and methodology may vary for health care providers and patients. The agency proposes to implement the following strategies:

Develop a questionnaire for health providers within the I/T/U system.

Questionnaire for patients to be contracted to determine knowledge, attitude, and practice as they pertain to universal HIV screening.

Use results to identify barriers to universal HIV screening.

Develop solutions to overcome practical, attitudinal, and other barriers to increase the rate and efficacy of implementation of CDC guidelines in IHS.

Utilize existing network of Tribal Epidemiology Centers to increase coverage, scale and intensity of project.

In addition to these four initiatives, this year’s submissions (FY07) will include two additional proposals. At this time, notice of approval and funding amounts are pending for all FY07 Proposals.

Office of Urban Indian Health (OUIH)

Initiative to continue to increase screening and rapid testing, which will expand services to clients, build capacity, and collect data as to barriers of implementation of testing services.

Community Health Representatives (CHR)

Training proposal specifically for the IHS’s unique healthcare worker, the CHR in collaboration with public health nursing. As a bridge between community and healthcare, this ideal group will also build capacity of the system and create a network of community-level support, HIV knowledge, and linkage to care. This proposal will allow for a national level training of trainers (ToT) format to directly build capacity in the community and provide for extended impact given the ToT format.

content relevant to the MAI:
FY06 Initiatives (ongoing) FY07 Proposals FY08 Proposals IHS MAI History (2000-2005)

+ Top of Page