Background

The CDC conducts several HIV/AIDS surveillance projects in order to track the epidemic, identifying prevalence of the disease, people at high risk, and characteristics of risk behavior, and utilization of prevention, testing, and treatment services.  Working with state and local partners across the United States, National HIV Behavioral Surveillance (NHBS) will help the CDC to efficiently direct HIV prevention funding to the people who need it most. The NHBS project is designed to strengthen the national capacity to monitor the HIV epidemic, in order to better direct and evaluate prevention efforts.

ICR began monitoring HIV risk behavior in 1988 with two community neighborhood assessments conducted in Hartford, CT by the AIDS Community Research Group (ACRG—including ICR, the Hispanic Health Council, the Urban League of Greater Hartford, and the Hartford Health Dept.). The ACRG community surveys were followed by Project COPE (Community Outreach for Prevention Education): Preventing AIDS Among Injection Drug Users and their Sex Partners, and COPE II. These four- and five-year Hartford-based studies, conducted by the ACRG and two additional partners (Latinos/as Contra SIDA and the Hartford Dispensary), examined the drug use patterns and AIDS risk behavior among injection drug users (IDUs) and their sex partners. COPE was part of the National AIDS Demonstration Research project, one of 29 similar studies across the nation, and COPE II was part of the NIDA Cooperative Agreement. Over time, ICR has continued to develop new studies that assess HIV related risks and service needs in communities that are particularly vulnerable to contracting HIV. These projects include the Study of High-Risk Drug Use Settings for HIV Prevention, HIV Prevention in High-Risk Drug Use Sites: Project RAP, and and the Longitudinal Study of the RAP Peer Intervention for HIV Prevention, all of which worked with active drug users; Microbicide Acceptability to Prevent HIV in High-Risk Women, and Sustained Safer Behavior (Female Condom Use) in High-Risk Women to Prevent HIV, working with heterosexual women; Pathways to High-Risk Drug Abuse Among Urban Youth, and Urban Lifestyles: Club Drugs, Resource Inequities and Health Risks in Urban Youth, working with urban youth; and AIDS Risk in Older Urban Adult Senior Housing Residents, working with older adults. These studies incorporate surveillance research into larger community embedded studies that give social and behavioral context to risk behavior among various populations.