Goal
Project goals include identifying barriers and facilitators to engagement in care (for people living with HIV), and using pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) (for people who use drugs), focused on the Hamilton population. The project also aims to establish a network of low barrier clinics in Ontario (which combine treatment and prevention of HIV with robust addiction medicine services) and then assess the network’s impact on data quality regarding best practices in this topic area, and opportunities for mutual learning and quality improvement.
Background and Description
A previous HIV project, supported by the Ontario HIV Treatment Network, examined the effectiveness of a low barrier clinic model aimed at providing care to people who use drugs (who either had an established HIV infection or who were at high risk of acquiring an infection). This project was carried out from 2020-2023, and data analysis is currently underway.
The current project, also supported by the Ontario HIV Treatment Network, and CEBI, seeks to continue the work that is currently underway, while expanding the scope to include: a more robust evaluation of the feasibility and effectiveness of a scaled up program of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for people who use drugs at high risk of HIV infection; and the development of a network of low barrier clinics in Ontario.
For more information about this study, please contact CEBI by email at cebi@hhsc.ca.