Policy Brief

The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed concerns about social and structural factors related to health disparities, including those related to HIV. The Lens tool is a partial response to an urgent need to understand whether elevated risk of COVID-19 disease and mortality among persons living with HIV (PLWH) results from related risk behaviors, a higher burden […]

As many of you know, the FDA is considering a ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. The briefing document, written by Dr. Sabrina L. Smiley (We The People) and colleagues at the UC Merced Nicotine & Cannabis Policy Center, outlines four essential points from research and science that community organizations should know as they […]

HIV rates among Latino men who have sex with men are not decreasing at the same rate as they are decreasing among white MSM. This is a matter of concern as Latinx people are the largest racial/ethnic minority group affected by HIV in California. Currently, the California Department of Public Health in partnership with county […]

On this International Sex Worker Rights Day, we examine the criminalization of commercial sex trade and frameworks seeking to regulate it across the globe. Preventing the spread of disease, including sexually transmitted infections and HIV, are powerful levers for justifying the existence of such laws. This brief seeks to answer the question—what is the evidence […]

Approximately a third of all women in the U.S. 16 years or older identify as Black and Latina; they are at increased risk for poorer sexual and reproductive health outcomes compared to their white counterparts. We conducted a qualitative study among healthcare providers and administrators to understand and identify barriers to implementing culturally appropriate sexual […]

Eight California Counties have been prioritized in the Ending the Epidemics: A Plan for America–Alameda, Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, and San Francisco. Additional federal funding in the hardest hit areas is intended to address barriers and disparities that have limited the successful uptake of proven-effective interventions like PrEP and TaSP. […]

The spread of SARS-CoV-2 has been accompanied by troubling disparities in infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. This issue brief underscores lessons from the HIV/AIDS epidemic, outlining the need for comprehensive data to design and carry out appropriate mitigation measures. It draws comparisons to the HIV epidemic and identifies gaps in race/ethnicity data in routine COVID-19 case […]

In the second of a two-part series, we explore the impact of the opioid epidemic on HIV and other health conditions in California and Nevada. Downstream consequences of the U.S. opioid epidemic, including the many lives left in its wake, are a reminder that efforts to combat infectious disease must begin with the search for […]

The California Legislature passed Senate Bill 159 (SB159) in 2019 allowing pharmacists to initiate and furnish HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to eligible patients without a prescription. The law goes into effect on July 1, 2020. This report presents a preliminary summary of the attitudes and recommendations among potential consumers of PrEP/PEP without […]

Given the low uptake of daily oral PrEP, exploration of safe alternative agents (e.g. medications) and alternative modalities to deliver PrEP (e.g. alternative dosing, injectables, topical agents, and long-acting treatment) are integral to address PrEP disparities moving forward. The purpose of this brief is to provide an overview of existing and future PrEP agents and […]