HIV Care Engagement Among Trans Women of Color in San Francisco Bay Area Demonstration Projects: Findings from the Brandy Martell Project and TransAccess.

In the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA), trans women of color are disproportionately affected by HIV and have poor HIV care outcomes. The Brandy Martell Project and TransAccess were two demonstration projects aimed at increasing HIV care engagement and retention among trans women of color in the SFBA. Both projects took place in clinics with a long history of providing trans health care and social services. Both also relied on peer navigation to address systems barriers and promote HIV care linkage and engagement. Our analysis was to identify associations between intervention exposure and primary HIV care visits, ART prescription, and retention in HIV care. Using GEE, we estimated the association between intervention exposure measures (receipt of intervention, intervention dose, intervention provider, and peer dose) and any primary HIV care visit or ART prescription over the 12-month period. Overall, the Brandy Martell Project and TransAccess interventions had significantly positive associations with HIV care outcomes measured. Peer navigation also had a significantly positive association with HIV care outcomes. These interventions demonstrate promise for engaging and retaining trans women of color in HIV care, and call for future investment in this highly underserved community.

Housing and income effects on HIV-related health outcomes in the San Francisco Bay Area - findings from the SPNS transwomen of color initiative.

Transwomen of color are disproportionately impacted by HIV and may have worse health outcomes than other populations. This analysis was conducted to examine structural factors associated with poor health outcomes among transwomen of color living with HIV in the San Francisco Bay Area (N = 159). Univariate and multivariable analyses were conducted to determine if structural factors were associated with poor HIV-related health outcomes. A majority of participants were Black or African American (110/159, 69.2%), 32 (20.1%) identified their primary race/ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino/a or Spanish, and 17 (10.7%) identified as another race/ethnicity. Transwomen of color in our sample faced extreme structural barriers, including residential transience, extreme low income, high prevalence of running out of money in the last six months, high rates of food insecurity, high prevalence of income via entitlement programs, engagement in sex work and other illicit activities for income. Unstable housing was the structural factor most consistently associated with poor health outcomes along the HIV care continuum and may explain engagement in other sources of income generation. Interventions are needed that go beyond the individual and health care-level to address needs for housing and economic opportunities to improve HIV care outcomes among transwomen of color living with HIV in the San Francisco Bay Area.