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Home > Programs & Sites > Minority AIDS Initiative

Minority AIDS Initiative

As the epidemic disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minorities locally and nation-wide, PAETC offers Minority AIDS Initiative (MAI) programming specifically targeting minority providers, providers serving HIV-infected persons of color, and minority-serving community-based organizations. MAI funds, as identified by Congress, are used to increase the capacity of these organizations to increase their capacity to provide HIV care to highly impacted minority populations. The programs are designed to meet a specific, local capacity building need to improve access and care for highly-impacted minority communities. Eleven of the 15 LPSs in the Pacific region receive special funding for MAI training and education activities, including:

  • Clinical Capacity Building for Latino and African-American Serving Providers (San Jose AETC) focuses on minority community health centers.
  • Increasing clinical capacity at community clinics serving minority patients (San Diego AETC) addresses Latino HIV patient care needs at two rural clinics.
  • Clinical Training for Minority Health Care Providers (UCI AETC) focuses on improving the quality of care for minority patients in LA county jails.
  • Increasing HIV Testing and clinical capacity to provide care in community clinics (Reno AETC) increases access to care for minority patients at 4 Northern Nevada sites.
  • Improving provider capacity to treat minority PLWHA dealing with Co-Occurring Disorders (Drew AETC) improves HIV clinicians’ ability to care for minority patients dealing with mental health or substance abuse issues.
  • Building HIV Capacity in the Los Angeles County Jail System (USC AETC) supports high quality care in L.A . County jails and continuity of care post detention.
  • Clinical capacity building in the US Pacific Island Jurisdiction (HI AETC) continues with local minority clinician development as HIV experts.
  • Capacity building for Hispanic serving providers at Community Outreach Medical Center (Las Vegas AETC) focuses on one clinical setting serving a large at risk and infected Hispanic.
  • Clinical Capacity Development for Spanish Speaking IMG’s (UCLA AETC) addresses the need to expand the number of Spanish Speaking HIV clinicians in Los Angeles Co.
  • Northern Cal Regional Jail HIV Strategy project (San Francisco, Davis and East Bay AETC’s) targets clinicians caring for HIV+ inmates in northern CA jails settings.

The MAI sites are: Drew, Reno/Vegas, UCSF, UCI, Hawaii, San Diego, UCLA, East Bay, USC, San Jose

Other MAI-funded targeted initiatives include the following:

American Indian/Native Alaskan Initiative

3,426 AIDS cases had been reported among American Indians and Alaska Natives (AN/AI) in the United States and its territories by the end of 2007, about 25% increase over the number of cases reported through 1997 (CDC 2009).

Studies indicate AI/AN experience significantly higher rates of co-morbidities for HIV such as sexually transmitted infections (STI’s) , mental illness (particularly depression), and chemical dependency, including alcoholism (HIS, 2007). Often these co-morbidities are linked to one another and facilitate exposure to and progression of HIV disease (HAB, 2001; Duran et al., 2000; Hesselbrock et al., 2000; Manson, 2000; Novins, et al., 2000; Chester et al., 1999; and Sullivan, 1991).

Select LPSs in the Pacific region receive special funding for American Indian / Alaska Native (AI/AN) training and education activities. The emphasis of this initiative is to integrate an array of services for HIV positive or at risk AI/AN population with co-morbidities of substance abuse, sexually transmitted infections and/or mental illness.

The AI/AIN sites are: Reno, Arizona, UCI

US/Mexico Border Initiative

PAETC receives funds targeted to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the US/Mexico border in California and Arizona. We collaborate with other regional AETCs as a member of the U.S.-Mexico Border AETC Steering Team (UMBAST). UMBAST’s mission is to promote high quality, culturally sensitive education and capacity building programs for health care providers and agencies that provide HIV/AIDS related prevention and clinical management services in the U.S.-Mexico border region; and to serve as the coordinating body to provide focused collaboration through joint planning, resource sharing and evaluation of AETC border activities.

for more information about UMBAST, click here.

The Border sites are: Arizona, UCLA, and San Diego.