Pathways to Care

Despite considerable progress in HIV treatment, only 76.3% of people with diagnosed HIV in the United States are retained in care, and only 67.2% are virally suppressed. This gap is not evenly distributed. The Southern United States, for instance, accounts for over 52% of new HIV diagnoses despite comprising only 38% of the U.S. population. Southern jurisdictions report the lowest rates of linkage to care (79.6%) and viral suppression (66.6%), driven by factors including higher poverty rates, lack of Medicaid expansion, limited healthcare access, and persistent stigma. As a result, thousands of people with HIV fall out of care or are never fully reconnected after initial diagnosis or treatment disruption.

Re-engagement in HIV care is integral to successfully ending the HIV epidemic in the United States with a large portion of persons with HIV not being engaged in HIV care and not being able to maintain viral suppression. 

NASTAD has received five-million dollars to launch Pathways to Care: A Relink Initiative that will support the development of innovative and dynamic activities focused on relinking persons who are out of care into care and reconnect them to sustained, high-quality HIV services.

The Pathways to Care initiative will:

• Support jurisdictions and their partners to implement scalable, community-centered re-engagement strategies.
• Provide coordinated grantmaking, technical assistance, evaluation, and peer learning to strengthen data-to-care infrastructure and re-engagement workflows.
• Establish a national learning network to share best practices, advance equity-focused approaches, and promote long-term sustainability beyond the grant period.

The Request for Proposals (RFP) to identify organizations interested in participating in the Relink HIV Initiative is available here. If you have additionally questions regarding this initiative, please feel free to contact relink@NASTAD.org.