The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced a 5-year HIV prevention funding opportunity for health departments in states, territories, and select cities.  Providing funding to health departments has long been a central component of CDC’s HIV prevention strategy, and is CDC’s single largest investment in HIV prevention.  CDC’s new funding opportunity represents a new direction in HIV prevention, and is designed to achieve a higher level of impact with every federal HIV prevention dollar. 

CDC’s new approach features better geographic targeting of resources and a stronger focus on supporting the highest-impact prevention strategies.  This approach embodies CDC’s commitment to high impact prevention using scalable, cost-effective interventions with demonstrated potential to reduce new infections to yield a major impact on the HIV epidemic.  High impact prevention is essential to achieving the HIV prevention goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, which was announced in 2010.

CDC’s new approach to HIV prevention funding for health departments was informed by input from many of CDC’s partners in the HIV prevention community. Community input proved essential in developing several key elements of the funding opportunity, including a minimum funding level for all jurisdictions, the introduction of competitive funding for innovative demonstration projects, and the continuation of direct funding for heavily affected cities.  CDC is confident that this approach reflects the input of many different parties and represents the best course of action.

Purpose

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to support implementation of high impact, comprehensive HIV prevention programs to achieve maximum impact on reducing new HIV infections. In accordance with NHAS, this FOA focuses on addressing the national HIV epidemic, reducing new infections, increasing access to care, improving health outcomes for people living with HIV, and promoting health equity.  The aforementioned will be achieved by enhancing public health departments’ capacities to increase HIV testing, refer and link HIV positive persons to medical care and other essential services, and increase program monitoring and accountability.

The goal of this FOA is to reduce HIV transmission by building capacity of health departments to: focus HIV prevention efforts in communities and local areas where HIV is most heavily concentrated to achieve the greatest impact in decreasing the risks of acquiring HIV; increase HIV testing; increase access to care and improve health outcomes for people living with HIV by linking them to continuous and coordinated quality care and much needed medical, prevention and social services; increase awareness and educate communities about the threat of HIV and how to prevent it; expand targeted efforts to prevent HIV infection using a combination of effective, evidence-based approaches, including delivery of integrated and coordinated biomedical, behavioral, and structural HIV prevention interventions; and reduce HIV-related disparities and promote health equity.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces the availability of Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 funds for a cooperative agreement program for health departments to develop and implement Comprehensive HIV Prevention Programs in the following three categories:

Category A: HIV Prevention Programs for Health Departments (core funding)

Category B: Expanded HIV Testing for Disproportionately Affected Populations (limited eligibility and optional)

Category C: Demonstration Projects to Implement and Evaluate Innovative, High Impact HIV Prevention Interventions and Strategies (competitive and optional)

This funding opportunity announcement is limited to health departments or their Bona Fide Agents.  Community-based organizations (CBOs), for-profit entities, public non-profit, private non-profit, faith-based, and tribal organizations and colleges and universities are not eligible to apply for funding under this FOA.

All applicants must apply for Category A.  Applicants may also apply for Category B (if eligible) and/or Category C. 

Applicants eligible for Category A and Category C of this FOA are limited to state, local and territorial health departments or their Bona Fide Agents.  This includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Republic of Palau.  Also eligible are the local (county or city) health departments serving the ten specific Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) or specified Metropolitan Divisions (MDs) that have the highest unadjusted number of persons living with a diagnosis of HIV infection as of year-end 2008.  The ten eligible cities are Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.

Applicants eligible for Category B of this FOA are limited to state, local and territorial health departments or their Bona Fide Agents with at least 3,000 Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino adults and adolescents (unadjusted number) living with a diagnosis of HIV infection as of year-end 2008.  Eligible jurisdictions include Alabama, Atlanta, Arizona, Baltimore, California, Chicago, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Ft. Lauderdale, Georgia, Houston, Illinois, Indiana, Los Angeles, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Miami, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York State, New York City, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Puerto Rico, San Francisco, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.