COVID Community-Engaged Testing in Alabama: Reaching Underserved Rural Populations Through Collaboration.

Rural communities are often underserved by public health testing initiatives in Alabama. As part of the National Institutes of Health's Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics‒Underserved Populations initiative, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, along with community partners, sought to address this inequity in COVID-19 testing. We describe the participatory assessment, selection, and implementation phases of this project, which administered more than 23 000 COVID-19 tests throughout the state, including nearly 4000 tests among incarcerated populations. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(10):1399-1403. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.306985).

HIV voluntary counseling and testing among injection drug users in south China: a study of a non-government organization based program.

HIV voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) programs are usually delivered by government health agencies in China. This study examined the feasibility of using a Chinese non-government organization (NGO) to deliver a VCT program to injection drug users (IDUs) in a southern Chinese city. The process data indicated the program successfully recruited and served 226 male and female IDUs in 4 months. The HIV prevalence rate of the study population was 57.5% by rapid HIV testing with a secondary rapid test to confirm. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations indicated that the VCT program was implemented appropriately and participants' HIV knowledge and safe drug and sex practices were significantly improved after participation in the VCT program. This study demonstrates the feasibility of a Chinese NGO to provide VCT for IDUs and documents the processes and outcomes of the program. There remains a great need to find additional sources to provide VCT and other HIV prevention services to IDUs and other high-risk populations in China. Chinese NGOs have the potential to fill this need.