Alliance for Positive Change Launches Innovative Project

(New York, N.Y.)—Under an innovative partnership with New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) and Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), Alliance for Positive Change is taking the lessons it has learned throughout its 30-year history to connect people with HIV and AIDS to healthcare, and engage with people who use opioids and other substances to connect them with COVID-19 testing.

Partnering with NYSPI, Alliance is participating in a two-year project: RADx-UP (Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics for Underserved Populations), funded by the National Institutes of Health through a $1.4 billion initiative, is targeting more than 70 communities across the country to research testing patterns, identify disparities, develop strategies to make testing easier, inform a national strategy, and help communities respond to vaccine opportunities.

Alliance is applying two of its successful community outreach strategies used to encourage HIV testing to COVID-19 testing in high-need communities throughout New York City. First, Alliance is using chain referral, or social networking, where current study participants recruit future participants from among their acquaintances. Second, Alliance Peers— credible messengers who share their own challenges—connect and motivate participants to engage with testing.

“These two social network strategies have been effective in accessing vulnerable populations and engaging them in screening and education for HIV and other infectious diseases and will prove useful in engaging vulnerable populations for COVID-19 screening,” says Sharen I. Duke, Executive Director and CEO of Alliance for Positive Change. “Both strategies depend on training people to educate and encourage their peers to engage in COVID-19 testing and risk reduction.”

The effort comes as marginalized communities, and primarily communities of color across the country, continue to face glaring disparities as they confront the pandemic, with disproportionately higher numbers of people of color testing positive and not getting tested or vaccinated against COVID-19. Additionally, the initiative comes as the opioid epidemic rages across the country and disproportionately affects marginalized communities of color; more than 87,000 people reportedly died of drug overdoses in the 12-month period that ended in September 2020, with significantly higher rates among Black Americans.

In New York City, NYSPI and CUIMC is partnering with Alliance and Argus Community, Inc.

“This project represents an important opportunity for communities that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 to lead the charge in designing outreach strategies that can address real community concerns about testing and vaccines,” said Katherine Elkington, PhD, Associate Professor of Medical Clinical Psychology (in Psychiatry), NYSPI and CUIMC. “By working closely with members of communities in NYC that have been hardest hit by COVID-19, the hope is that we can re-build trust and encourage those most vulnerable to seek testing—and ultimately the vaccine—which will protect themselves, their social networks, and their communities from COVID-19.”

“In partnership with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and as a grant subrecipient, Argus Community is proud to be on the front lines of the epidemic providing COVID-19 testing to individuals with substance use disorders as part of a National Institute of Health RADx-Up research grant. According to the most recent New York City Department of Health COVID-19 data, the south Bronx still has some of the highest rates of COVID-19 infection in all of New York City and Argus Community will be reaching those at-risk community members to know their status, provide COVID-19 health education, and link those who test positive to care,” said Daniel L. Lowy, LCSW , Deputy Executive Director, Argus Community, Inc.

The initiative follows a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach that builds on the expertise and community outreach infrastructure of Alliance, starting with adapting chain referral and credible messenger strategies to support COVID-19 testing uptake and sustainability. Over several phases, the organizations develop specific messaging around COVID-19 that address community fears and concerns and encourage community members to seek testing, examine the effectiveness, and develop a blueprint that other community-based organizations can follow.

Alliance is well-positioned to lead this effort in New York City: throughout its history, the organization has adopted practices to connect with some of the city’s most vulnerable residents, those facing HIV/AIDS, other chronic health conditions, and substance-use challenges, and leveraged our ever-growing cadre of Peers to help countless individuals get tested for HIV and hepatitis C, connected them with doctors and medications, and helped them address their basic needs.

Throughout the pandemic, Alliance Peers have supported thousands of New Yorkers by providing them with food and nutrition services, access to COVID-19 testing and vaccinations, and direct contact to provide comfort, care, and compassion amid a period of isolation and fear.

About The Alliance for Positive Change

The Alliance for Positive Change transforms the lives of New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS and other chronic illnesses. We help people access medical care, manage and overcome addiction, escape homelessness, get back to work, and find community. By addressing the underlying issues that contribute to poor health, Alliance’s individualized, full-service approach and harm reduction philosophy help New Yorkers lead healthier, more self-sufficient lives. At Alliance, we believe everyone deserves the chance to feel better, live better, and do better. Learn more at www.alliance.nyc.