Integrating community health workers into HIV care teams: Impact on HIV care outcomes
Year: 2020
State: NatDoc: National Document
Website link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15381501.2020.1785364
Publicly Available: No
Certification: CHW role scope of practice
Evidence Generation: Documentation of how CHWs can work within care teams, Evidence-based interventions, General other, White papers
Sustainable Financing: Evidence-based interventions
Workforce Development: Chronic Disease, General other (including mention of “employment practices”), Recruiting and convening CHWs stakeholders, Training- Content modes delivery, Training- Continuing education
Objectives: To assess the impact of a Community Health Worker (CHW) intervention within HIV primary care on patient outcomes.
Methods: We evaluated a 10-site initiative integrating CHWs into HIV care, examining changes in three outcomes: viral load suppression, a prescription for ART, and appointment attendance. We also assessed the relationship between the three outcomes and the number of CHW encounters.
Results: Of 397 participants, most were male and African- American. The mean days of encounters over the first 6 months was 11 per participant. All outcomes improved in the first 6 months: percent with a primary care visit from 49.9 to 84.7% (p<.000); percent with an active ART prescription from 66.9 to 91.3% (p<.000); percent virally suppressed from 22.4 to 43.7% (p < .000). No statistically significant relationship between number of encounters and improvement in out- comes was found.
Conclusions: CHW interventions in HIV primary care can lead to improvements in HIV outcomes.