Title of Collaborative Activity: |
Strategic Multisite Initiative for the Identification, Linkage and Engagement in Care of Youth with Undiagnosed HIV Infection (SMILE in CARING for YOUTH) |
Description of Collaborative Activity: |
The Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions (ATN) was awarded grant money to expand their project of increasing availability of HIV testing for adolescents 12-24 and the provision of adolescent-focused healthcare services for those adolescents who are diagnosed with HIV infection. The project's expansion includes all the ATN sites across the US. NICHD is collecting data to evaluate the effectiveness of adolescent oriented linkage to care services for the HIV infected adolescents. This collaboration has the potential to improve the health of American youth, both by identifying those with undiagnosed HIV and bringing them into adolescent-friendly treatment programs and by reducing the chances of them further spreading the virus to others. There is a committee "SMILE in CARING for YOUTH that monitors activities related to NIH-CDC collaboration on enhancing treatment and retention in care of HIV youth. |
