# RP1 Screen 2 Prevent

> **NIH NIH UM2** · FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $631,202

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Adolescents and young adults (AYA) are disproportionately affected by HIV in the US. Despite adolescents
accounting for over 20% of new infections, this age group is the least likely to be tested for HIV, linked to care,
and achieve viral suppression as compared to their adult counterparts. Further, AYA also have low rates of HIV
Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) awareness and uptake. Therefore, there is an urgent need to expand HIV
screening and prevention strategies to nontraditional healthcare settings such as emergency departments (ED)
to reach AYA who would otherwise not receive preventive healthcare. The goal of this application is to
leverage our recent insights obtained from a multi-center, ED-based, adolescent gonorrhea and chlamydia
screening study to determine the most clinically and cost-effective HIV screening approach for AYA that will
also use digital health and rapid start PrEP or antiretroviral therapy (ART) for at risk youth. This will be
accomplished through the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions (ATN) by leveraging
its infrastructure which includes geographically diverse site consortiums including adolescent clinics and their
associated pediatric EDs. This research will contribute to the evidence base for creating clinically effective,
cost-effective, and sustainable HIV screening programs that can be successfully implemented into the clinical
workflow of the ED. It will also improve identification and linkage to PrEP/ART care for at risk adolescents
using mHealth strategies by first identifying AYA who are PrEP/ART candidates based on their responses to a
computerized sexual health screen (cSHS) and subsequently providing clinical decision support (CDS) to
providers via the electronic health record and educational information by text message directly to PrEP/ART
candidates based on their HIV results. This intervention will rely on an innovative approach that electronically
integrates patient-reported data to guide CDS. This work is significant because it has the potential to fill gaps in
the literature needed to provide evidence for the best method of HIV screening in a pediatric ED setting. First,
we will conduct a pragmatic comparative effectiveness trial of targeted HIV screening (screening only those
disclosing high risk sexual behavior) versus universally offered HIV screening (both opt-in and opt-out methods
offered to all, regardless of risk) through electronic integration of patient reported data for provision of CDS and
identification of PrEP candidacy. Based on HIV test results, we will then harness digital health for status neutral
rapid or same-day mHealth PrEP/ART start (SMART) and linkage to care. This research is novel in that it shifts
the usual clinical practice paradigm of HIV screening and prevention in the pediatric ED from a scattered
approach to a consistent and sustainable approach that is critical to addressing the HIV epidemic among AYA.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10767951
- **Project number:** 5UM2HD111102-02
- **Recipient organization:** FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Lisa B Hightow-Weidman
- **Activity code:** UM2 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $631,202
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-01-25 → 2029-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10767951

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10767951, RP1 Screen 2 Prevent (5UM2HD111102-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10767951. Licensed CC0.

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