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Enhancing HIV Prevention and Support at HelpCenter: A Community Approach

The HelpCenter, affiliated with the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, provides vital psycho-social and medical aid for sexual and reproductive health, focusing on HIV prevention. From its inception, it transitioned from CAW Metropool to collaborating with ITM to enhance access to free HIV testing and counseling. By reaching marginalized communities, including migrants and high-risk individuals, it aims to increase awareness of HIV serostatus, improve healthcare access, and foster preventive behaviors. With a dedicated team, HelpCenter addresses culturally sensitive needs and conducts outreach to maximize health outcomes.

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Enhancing HIV Prevention and Support at HelpCenter: A Community Approach

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  1. Project HelpCenter Tom Platteau Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp

  2. History of HelpCenter • Until 2005: partner of CAW Metropool • Psycho-social and medical aid for sexual and reproductive health issues. • From 2006 on: partner of ITM to improve access to HIV-test • Free of charge consultation and HIV-test • External service, not located at ITM • Priority changes towards: • Accent on HIV-test (and STI-tests), • Reaching specific target groups (MSM, SAM) • No long-term follow-up.

  3. Main goal: Secondary HIV-prevention • Increase the number of people living with HIV (PLWH) • Who are aware of their HIV-serostatus • With access to • Health care • Preventive care • Who adopt and maintain preventive behavior for HIV and sexually transmittable infections (STI) • Improve preventive behavior among HIV-negative people with high risk behavior.

  4. Secondary goals • Generate recommendations • On a policy level • For political decision makers • On a sociological level • For specific (sub-)cultures • On an organizational level • For a standard of care for health care providers.

  5. Staff of HelpCenter • Receptionist • Social nurse • Medical doctors • Sexologist • Coordinator

  6. Method Low threshold consultations for sexual health care: • HIV- and STI-tests (anonymously on demand); • Consultations for complaints and questions on STI, pregnancy, contraception, safe sex, … • Psychological and sexological advice and treatment; • Confidential counseling on sexual problems; • An approach that takes intercultural aspects into account, as well as the socially weak position of women, young people and migrants.

  7. Target Groups • Migrants from Africa, Asia, Central and South-America, Eastern- and Central Europe… • People with a difficult access to regular health care (young people, difficult relationship with GP) • People with high-risk sexual behavior • People who are seeking an anonymous HIV- or STI-test

  8. Activities • Medical consultations • Sexological consultations • Operational research (to generate policy guidelines) • Specific projects: • Rapid HIV-test since June 2007 • Outreach testing in preparation phase

  9. Co-operation • HIV-SAM: • “Muungano” in HelpCenter (patient-group for African migrants living with HIV) • Attendance of an African doctor to provide culturally sensitive counseling at HelpCenter • Sensoa: • Publicity towards MSM • Others: • De Acht, AZG, CLB,…

  10. Results January - June 07 • Medical consultations: • 274 patients • 159 patients had HIV-test (58%) • 532 patient contacts • Mean: 20,5 consultations per week

  11. HIV-test January – June 07 • 159 patients had HIV-test • 88 males, 71 females • 1 test HIV-positive • 38 (23,9%) had an anonymous test • 121 (76,1%) not anonymous

  12. HelpCenter patientsHealth Insurance (N=266)

  13. HelpCenter patients Origin(N=274)

  14. African patients • Total of African patients: 45 • Sex of African patients: • 14 male • 31 female • 25 African patients had HIV-test (11 male, 14 female) • Anonymous vs not anonymous: 2/25 (8%) vs 23/25 (92%) • Percentage anonymous among African patients (8%) < overall percentage (23,9%)

  15. African patientsReasons for consulting HelpCenter

  16. African patientsReason for having an HIV-test

  17. Conclusions • HelpCenter reaches its socially vulnerable target group: 40% has no health insurance • Anonymous testing is, in contrary as expected, more requested by people with health insurance (socially less vulnerable). Therefore, fixed sum (€20) for anonymous STI check-up is requested. • Additional efforts to reach target groups in order to increase number of tests are necessary.

  18. Acknowledgements • Kristien Wouters • Christiana Nöstlinger • Filip Moerman • Chris Van Ghyseghem • Ilse Collier

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