Miriam Rabkin, MD, MPH, and Peter Preko, MB.ChB, MPH have leveraged their experience leading ICAP’s CQUIN learning network to co-author an article on the contrast between increasingly tailored HIV programs and the global push for integrated primary care services to achieve universal health coverage (UHC). The article was published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization in February 2020.
The article, led by Charles B Holmes of the Georgetown University School of Medicine, explores current approaches to achieving both HIV epidemic control and UHC and highlights several areas for convergence that could enhance both initiatives. The other co-authors of the article were Peter Ehrenkranz, senior program officer in HIV treatment, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Nathan Ford, department of HIV and Global Hepatitis Program, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland; Sydney Rosen, Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa; and Tom Ellman, Medical Department, Médecins Sans Frontières, Cape Town, South Africa.
“HIV programs are adopting a precision public health approach to program design,” notes Dr. Rabkin. “Data from PHIA surveys, recency testing, biobehavioral surveys, and more have enabled us to target groups and geographic areas most in need, while differentiated service delivery increasingly tailors program design to client preferences. It’s important to recognize how different this is from the integrated primary care programs at the heart of many discussions of UHC, and to think strategically about these tensions and ways to maximize health outcomes for all.”
Read the full report in the February 2020 Bulletin of the World Health Organization here.
