Agencies in Five Cities Receive Funding to Improve Coordination of Health Care and Housing Assistance for HIV Patients

Public health departments and nonprofit groups in five cities have been selected to share up to $1.5 million in federal funding to improve the coordination of health care and housing assistance among providers who offer services to people living with HIV.

The five performance sites selected after a nationwide competition are: the City of Hartford Health & Human Services Department in Connecticut; Gregory House Programs in Honolulu, Hawaii; the Kansas City Health Department in Missouri; the Palm Beach County Department of Community Services in Florida; and the Cascade AIDS Project in Portland, Oregon.

The funding, which will be spread over 2½ years, is provided through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Minority AIDS Initiative and administered through the Health Resources and Services Administration's HIV/AIDS Bureau through the Special Projects of National Significance Program.

The nonprofit RAND Corporation is providing support and capacity building assistance to the five selected performance sites and conducting the multisite evaluation.

The goal of the project is to improve health outcomes for persons living with HIV by enhancing the ability of providers to coordinate client information sharing and services across multiple funding programs. The project will focus on improving data systems, and coordinating housing and care services for clients across providers.

More information about the project is available on the project website.

Federal officials estimate more than 1.2 million people in the United States are living with HIV, with large racial and ethnic disparities existing on outcomes such as treatment rates and housing insecurity. Homeless people living with HIV tend to have poorer access to medical care and are more likely to die from their illness than others.

RAND Health is the nation's largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on health care costs, quality and public health preparedness, among other topics.