A collection of articles recently published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS) takes a deep-dive into a relatively new HIV prevention tool referred to as Data to Care (D2C).
D2C is a public health strategy that uses surveillance and other data to improve continuity of HIV care for persons with HIV by identifying those who are in need of medical care or other services and facilitating linkage to these services. The primary goal of D2C is to increase the number of persons with HIV who are engaged in care and virally suppressed. D2C is a promising HIV prevention and care strategy expected to enable health departments to move closer to achieving national HIV prevention goals. As with many new program efforts, there are relatively few published papers describing the implementation and effectiveness of D2C. Given that many HIV surveillance and prevention programs are just beginning to implement D2C programs, a better understanding of programmatic implementation practices is of great importance.
The JAIDS Special Supplement includes 13 articles. Successful integration of HIV surveillance and prevention programs holds the promise of making D2C a powerful tool. The collection of articles can be found here.