About REACH

Project Overview

What is REACH 2010?

REACH 2010 – Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health is a national program funded through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). REACH 2010 is designed to eliminate disparities in the following six priority areas: cardiovascular disease, immunizations, breast and cervical cancer screening and management, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and infant mortality. The racial and ethnic groups targeted by REACH 2010 are African Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, Hispanics, and Pacific Islanders.

What is the Coalition to Reduce HIV
in Broward’s Minority Communities?

Our Coalition to Reduce HIV in Broward’s Minority Communities is one of the 42 REACH 2010 programs nationwide funded through the CDC. The Central Coordinating Organization (CCO) for this project is Florida International University (insert link to www.fiu.edu). The CCO has worked closely for the past 6 years with several Community Based Organizations (CBOs) such as Hispanic Unity of Florida (Hispanic and Hispanic-American), Urban League of Broward County (African-American), and Minority Development and Empowerment (Caribbean and Caribbean-American), as well as with the Broward County Health Department, the Florida Department of Health, the American Red Cross, and other local partners involved in HIV/AIDS prevention and education.

After listening carefully to what members of our communities had to say during the first year of formative evaluations (1999-2000), our coalition designed a comprehensive multilevel, multi-sector and multi-phased intervention program to interrupt the transmission of HIV. Culturally sensitive, community-level strategies have been implemented since 2001 to enhance the essential services provided by the Broward County Health Department. The project focuses on 18 to 39 year-olds in the African-American, Caribbean and Hispanic communities. This is the age group at highest risk of HIV infection. We target our activities in 12 key zip codes, where the number of new cases of HIV is the highest in Broward County.

Targeted actions for our community demonstration project include several strategies to create awareness, ownership and participation towards HIV prevention:·

• A continuing presence and persistent outreach to area residents (“horizontal outreach”),·
• Outreach to businesses, organizations and community leaders (“vertical outreach”),·
• Strategic communications to inform individuals and mobilize communities for collective action, ·
• Capacity building and enhancement of the public health infrastructure.

Project Goals

1. Increase awareness and ownership of the HIV problem among the targeted communities, and stimulate participation towards HIV prevention.

2. To improve the capacity of community-based organizations to deliver effective primary HIV-prevention services for communities at risk.

3. To assist community members who are at increased risk for HIV infection or HIV transmission in reducing their frequencies of risk behaviors.

4. To transform community conditions and systems so that a supportive environment exists to minimize risky behaviors and to adopt and sustain protective behaviors.5. To increase rates of protective behaviors and reduce rates of risky behaviors associated with HIV transmission throughout the three areas of Broward County targeted for change.6. To decrease incidence of sexually transmitted infections, alcohol use, and drug use among young adults residing in communities at risk.

Evaluation Plan

To determine exposure to our interventions and track community-level change, data are collected through activity logs, ethnographic studies, participant observation, and secondary analysis of available data and documents. To assess behavior change, we are conducting an open-ended cohort study involving five telephone surveys (over 7 years) of more than 2,000 community residents each, and three sets of interviews and tests with a sub-sample of phone survey respondents. Respondents are members of the target population living in 12 zip codes highly impacted by HIV disease. Personal interviews and biologic tests are offered to all high-risk and a 10% sample of other respondents.

To find out how you can become involved, please contact REACH 2010 at 1-877-HIV-FREE