UMass Amherst and Tufts Medical Center launch study to improve HIV care for incarcerated individuals

The College of Massachusetts Amherst and Tufts Medical Middle are conducting a examine to offer HIV prevention, prognosis and remedy for individuals with opioid use problems who’re incarcerated within the Boston space. 

The examine is funded with a $4.74 million CONNECT grant from the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a part of the Nationwide Institutes of Well being (NIH).

Elizabeth Evans, professor of group well being schooling within the UMass Amherst Faculty of Public Well being and Well being Sciences, and Dr. Alysse Wurcel, a doctor and infectious illness marketing consultant for the Massachusetts Sheriffs Affiliation, will collaborate to steer the analysis. 

Many individuals with opioid use dysfunction cross via carceral and authorized techniques. Improved entry to high-quality, evidence-based remedy for HIV and different infectious illnesses in justice settings is essential to addressing the overdose disaster.”

Elizabeth Evans, professor of group well being schooling, UMass Amherst Faculty of Public Well being and Well being Sciences

Dr. Wurcel provides, “We’re making an attempt to extend the variety of incarcerated people who find themselves examined and handled. Total people who find themselves incarcerated usually tend to check constructive for HIV than people who find themselves not incarcerated. By the CDC pointers, anybody in jail is in danger.” 

Those that check constructive needs to be given remedy and those that check damaging needs to be supplied pre-exposure HIV medicines to stop the illness. Therapy and prevention whereas incarcerated includes taking remedy on daily basis, Wurcel says. 

“Dr. Wurcel and I are lucky to steer this examine in collaboration with the Massachusetts Division of Public Well being and the Suffolk County jail system, the place there’s unprecedented cross-sector motivation to learn to enhance HIV look after incarcerated individuals and combine HIV care into the jails’ current packages,” Evans says.

 Preliminary examine actions are targeted on creating an intervention program referred to as ID-TOUCH. Linnea Evans and Kaitlyn Jaffe, assistant professors of well being promotion and coverage at UMass Amherst, are co-leading efforts to look at the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention by incarcerated individuals, employees on the Suffolk jails and different community-based companions. 

“HIV testing and medicines that stop HIV (pre-exposure prophylaxis, often called PrEP) are evidence-based and cost-effective, but are usually not adequately reaching justice-involved individuals,” Linnea Evans says. “Many are members of minoritized racial/ethnic teams and stay in communities disproportionately impacted by HIV and the opioid epidemic. Addressing the well being disparities that these service-need gaps exacerbate for socially and economically marginalized teams is a key impetus for our examine.”

The examine will function the inspiration for future analysis that will create a mannequin HIV remedy and prevention program for different jurisdictions across the commonwealth and the nation.

“Our analysis will assist us higher perceive tips on how to create equitable entry to infectious illness healthcare and remedy for individuals dwelling in jail settings and returning to the group,” Jaffe says. “Alongside the way in which, we’re involving individuals with lived and dwelling expertise of incarceration and opioid use to make sure that the intervention is matched to the wants of this inhabitants.”