ORDINANCE approving and authorizing the Director of the City of Houston Health Department to accept continuation grant funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for the City’s HIV Prevention Activities; declaring the City’s eligibility for such grant; authorizing the Director to expend the grant funds, as awarded, and to apply for and accept all subsequent awards, if any, pertaining to the grant

The Houston Health Department (HHD) requests City Council approval of an ordinance authorizing the extension of the project period for a grant application to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for the City’s HIV Prevention Activities Reducing HIV Infections and Improve Engagement in HIV Medical Care among Men Who Have Sex With Men (MSM) and Transgender Persons (TG). The budget period is 9/30/2016 through 9/29/2017. The project period is 9/30/2015 through 9/29/2018.

HHD also requests City Council to authorized the Director or his designee to act as the City’s representative in the application process with the authority to apply for, accept and expend the grant funds, as awarded, and to apply for and accept and expend all subsequent awards, to extend the budget and/or the project period and authorize the Mayor to execute all related contracts, agreements and documents with the approval of the City Attorney in connection with the grant not to exceed five years.

This project focuses on MSM and transgender people at high risk for HIV infection, particularly people of color. Funding from this grant will allow HHD to implement Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) activities. PrEP is a combination of two HIV medicines approved for daily use to help prevent an HIV-negative person from getting HIV from a HIV positive sexual or injection-drug-using partner. PrEP activities include:

1. Collecting community baseline level of PrEP awareness and interest among target population by surveying 200 MSM and TG
2. Developing at least one (1) comprehensive tracking process to capture when HIV staff offer PrEP education and refer clients for services, particularly MSM and TG.
3. Increasing media buys and support to prescribe PrEP through awareness building and training opportunities.
4. Implementing at least two (2) PrEP referral protocols for HHD to encourage PrEP uptake.
5. Conducting at least three (3) key informant interviews with known PrEP providers about their best practices for Texas-specific reimbursement and billing strategies to integrate into provider technical assistance and provider resources.

This funding opportunity will also allow HHD to use Data to Care, a new public health strategy that uses HIV surveillance data to identify HIV-diagnosed individuals not in care, link them to care, and support the HIV Care Continuum. Using Data to Care to achieve a population-based surveillance estimate of HIV among transgender Houstonians, HHD will:

1. Increase partnerships by 8% for data to care interventions with the 38 documented HIV care providers in Houston.
2. Increase referrals to linkage programs by 25% utilizing the Maven data systems when streamlining referrals.
3. Create new Houston – specific presentations to provide education awareness on the importance of engagement and retention in HIV care to targeted population, specifically, MSM and TG persons.
4. Generate Data-to-Care list identifying 29 TG persons with previous evidence of HIV care.
5. Conduct at least five (5) presentations on HIV care retention and cultural sensitivity at local and national HIV conferences.

Grant funding allows $1,342,281.00 in personnel costs (20 FTEs) and $ 2,622,177.00 in program expenses.

Total Amount of Grant Award:  $3,964,458.00                                           

Federal Government Grant Fund 5000          

Kathy Barton  -  Telephone: 832-393-5045

                           Cell:  713-826-5801