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1 Recommended Updates to the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, May 27, 2015 1 (2015)

handle is hein.prescomm/rdusnlha0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS Recommended Updates to the National HIV/AIDS Strategy May 27, 2015 Introduction The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) applauds President Obama's ongoing commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS in the United States and his Administration's efforts to update the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS or Strategy). Over the last 5 years, the Strategy has (a) served as an important catalyst for concentrating and coalescing efforts around a finite set of performance measures (including reducing the number of new infections and improving viral load suppression rates); (b) highlighted and improved our shared understanding of stubbornly persistent HIV-related disparities that transcend gender, geography, race, and age; and (c) challenged a broad cross-section of stakeholders at local, state, and federal levels to improve performance. As we approach the 5-year anniversary of the release of the original Strategy, we acknowledge the promise of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) while being soberly reminded of differences between Medicaid and non-Medicaid expansion States, we reflect on the concept that access is not always access, particularly given the profound influence of social determinants of health on the health outcomes of persons living with HIV (PLWH), even in the presence of categorical Ryan White Program (RWP) funding. We are now more acutely aware of the federal, state, tribal and local regulatory and cost-related barriers to full health care coverage and its impact on the ability to meet the goals of the first NHAS. As such, PACHA maintains that an update to the first landmark Strategy is not only timely, but will serve to (a) further focus our collective energy on the cross-section of communities most impacted by HIV, (b) offer guidance to redirect the investment of domestic HIV resources in a manner that results in dramatic decreases in HIV-related disparities, and (c) place a premium on shared national performance measures and the timeliness, accuracy, and responsiveness of federal measurement gauges. The PACHA recommendations outlined below build on prior recommendations, including those contained in the September 2013 PACHA document, Achieving an AIDS-Free Generation. Over the last few months, PACHA and its subcommittees (Access to Care, HIV Incidence, Disparities, and Global Issues) have independently and collectively raised, deliberated, presented, and refined a cross-section of broad and highly-specific recommendations for consideration by the White House Office of National AIDS Policy as it works to update the Strategy. A distillation of these recommendations results in several broad thematic areas including Access to Health Systems and System Responsiveness; Timeliness, Completeness, and Robustness of Tools to Measure Progress; and Disparities and Social Determinants of Health. The broader themes are complemented by specific recommendations tied to HIV Criminalization and Co-Morbidities of HIV Infection. The recommendations are outlined by theme area; input from all PACHA subcommittees was used to inform each section. Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS Recommended Updates to the National HIV/AIDS Strategy Page 1