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What is REACH
2010?
REACH 2010
–
Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health
is a national program funded through the
Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC). REACH2010 is designed to eliminate disparities in the
following six priority areas: cardiovascular disease,
immunizations, breast and cervical cancer screening and
management, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and infant mortality. The
racial and ethnic groups targeted by REACH 2010 are African
Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asian Americans,
Hispanics, and Pacific Islanders.
What is REACH 2010 - Coalition to Reduce HIV in Broward’s
Minority Communities?
Our Coalition to Reduce HIV in Broward’s Minority Communities
is one of the 42
REACH 2010
programs
nationwide funded through the CDC.
The Central Coordinating Organization (CCO)
for this project is
Florida International University.
The CCO has worked closely for the past 6 years with several
Community Based Organizations (CBOs) such as
Hispanic Unity of Florida (Hispanic and Hispanic-American),
Urban League of Broward County (African-American),
and
Minority Development and Empowerment (Caribbean and
Caribbean-American),
as well as with the Broward County Health Department, the
Florida Department of Health, the American Red Cross, and other local partners involved in HIV / AIDS prevention and
education.
After listening
carefully to what members of our communities had to say during
the first year of formative evaluations (1999-2000), our
coalition designed a comprehensive multilevel, multi-sector and
multi-phased intervention program to interrupt the transmission
of HIV. Culturally sensitive, community-level strategies have
been implemented since 2001 to enhance the essential services
provided by the Broward County Health Department. The project
focuses on 18 to 39 year-olds in the African-American, Caribbean
and Hispanic communities. This is the age group at highest risk
of HIV infection. We target our activities in 12 key zip codes,
where the number of new cases of HIV is the highest in Broward
County.
Targeted
actions
for our community demonstration project include several
strategies to create awareness, ownership and participation towards HIV prevention:
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A
continuing presence and persistent outreach to area
residents (“horizontal outreach”)
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Outreach
to businesses, organizations and community leaders
(“vertical outreach”)
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Strategic
communications to inform individuals and mobilize
communities for collective action
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Capacity
building and enhancement of the public health
infrastructure.
Project Goals
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Increase
awareness and ownership of the HIV
problem among the targeted communities, and stimulate
participation towards HIV prevention. |
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To improve the capacity of community-based organizations to
deliver effective primary HIV-prevention services
for communities at risk. |
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To assist community members who are at increased risk for HIV
infection or HIV transmission in reducing their
frequencies of risk behaviors. |
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To transform community conditions and systems so that a
supportive environment exists to minimize risky behaviors and
to adopt and sustain protective behaviors. |
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To increase rates of protective behaviors and reduce rates of
risky behaviors associated with HIV transmission throughout the
three areas of Broward County targeted for change. |
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To decrease incidence of sexually transmitted infections,
alcohol use, and drug use among young adults residing in
communities at risk. |
Evaluation Plan
To determine exposure to our interventions and track
community-level change, data are collected through activity
logs, ethnographic studies, participant observation, and
secondary analysis of available data and documents. To assess
behavior change, we are conducting an open-ended cohort study
involving five telephone surveys (over 7 years) of more than
2,000 community residents each, and three sets of interviews and
tests with a sub-sample of phone survey respondents.
Respondents are members of the target population living in 12
zip codes highly impacted by HIV disease. Personal interviews
and biologic tests are offered to all high-risk and a 10% sample
of other respondents.
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