PrEP Talk: Enabling Mental Health Professionals to Lead in Prevention

The Northwest MHTTC is excited to collaborate with the Mountain West AIDS Education & Training Center Program (AETC) on an educational series for behavioral health providers on addressing sexual health in behavioral health care.   The prevalence of HIV among people who have serious mental illnesses is four times as high as that of the general population. Factors that contribute to increased HIV risk include:   - psychiatric symptoms (e.g., disorganized thoughts and behaviors, delusions and poor executive functioning);  - higher rates of co-occurring substance use and other HIV risk behaviors;  - increased risk of social vulnerabilities, including poverty and housing instability;   - structural barriers (such as stigma and discrimination) to accessing medical care and prevention services in traditional medical settings.   Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) refers to medications for HIV-negative people to prevent them from getting HIV-infected. Current guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend informing all sexually active adults and adolescents about PrEP, but in a large 2020 survey of outpatient mental health care programs, only 33% of programs offered HIV testing and only 20% prescribed PrEP.   Behavioral health treatment settings offer opportunities for identifying the need for PrEP and linking clients to services. Our third session will provide information about the effectiveness of PrEP for reducing risk of acquiring HIV and describe criteria for eligibility and best practices for initiating and monitoring persons receiving PrEP prescriptions.   This webinar will be 90 minutes long.  Learn more and register for other webinars in this series by visiting: https://mhttcnetwork.org/sexual-health-webinar-series/ -------------- By joining this event hosted on Zoom, your name will be visible to other participants, the Northwest MHTTC, and our presenters.