Data-driven improvement of testing services for people most at risk for HIV

Objectives With this call for proposals Aids Fonds aims to stimulate data-driven improvement of HIV testing services to increase the number of people with HIV that know their status as early as possible after infection. This includes the following objectives:  To find innovative ways to tackle data gaps in knowledge on HIV prevalence and incidence.  To seek novel approaches in communicating to people most at risk for HIV, incentivizing them to know their HIV status and promote health among their peers, diagnose people living with HIV earlier in their infection, and link people to care more effectively and efficiently.  To identify geographical or population related ‘hotspots’ for people newly infected with HIV within a country or town  To develop and implement effective testing strategies to reach people most at risk (including but not limited to outreach services, home-based testing, self-testing, routine testing in new settings, indicator condition guided testing etc.). Strategies should include strong linkages to treatment, care and support, and can also include prevention interventions.  To advocate for better targeted prevention and treatment services for people most at risk  To stimulate partnerships between knowledge institutes, civil society organizations and governments, including innovate ways to integrate research into community outreach and services. Type of programs The main goal for all programs under this call should be to find more people with HIV that don’t know their status yet, and to find them earlier. To be able to do so, more focus is needed on certain geographical areas or populations. We ask for programs with both a data component and a service delivery component, with a civil society organization in the lead. The program could include one or more of the following activities: - Analyzing structured data (government, UNAIDS) and/or unstructured data (websites, social media) to be able to map HIV prevalence or risk behavior. - Research to fill data gaps in currently available data sets to identify people most at risk for HIV in a certain geographical area and analyzing the data during implementation of the testing program - Develop, implement and monitor a testing program that diagnoses and serves larger numbers of people living with HIV who don’t yet know their status. This could include a wide range of activities such as (but not limited to) expansion of outreach activities, incentives for people to come for testing, distribution of self-tests, training of healthcare workers on indicator condition guided testing, etc.