The Expanded Linkage to Care Initiative, operated by the Houston Department of Health and Human Services and supported by the Merck Foundation HIV Care Collaborative for Underserved Populations in the United States (HCC), works to improve health outcomes for HIV+ individuals by using data-driven systems to identify individuals in need of care and link them to high quality healthcare. The Merck Foundation established the HCC in 2012 to help connect people who are HIV+ to the care they need to stay healthy and reconnect others who are no longer receiving care. More than 20,000 people in Houston live with HIV/AIDS and nearly 30 percent of people who are aware of their HIV+ status do not receive HIV medical care. The Houston HCC program works to connect these individuals to care by using epidemiologic databases to identify and locate individuals lost to care and deploys service linkage workers to reconnect them to the care and services they need.

Click here to learn more about Houston’s Expanded Linkage to Care Initiative.