ViiV Healthcare is on a mission to reframe HIV prevention for Black women amid the disproportionately high rate of those diagnosed compared to other races, according to the CDC.
ViiV Healthcare, which is an independent, global specialist HIV company, made it their duty to combat this issue by creating a report called Risk to Reasons in 2021.
According to a release, the report highlights the need for new strategic methods to engage Black women effectively about their reasons for HIV prevention and who can exactly lead these conversations.
The company partnered with Black women advocates and experts to create a new committee called the Black Women’s Working Group (BWWG).
The committee consists of Black women living with or working in HIV to challenge existing prevention approaches and develop new recommendations for communicating and connecting with Black women about HIV.
This has also help formulate ViiV Healthcare’s Risk to Reasons initiative, which aims to create network spaces for information to circulate about HIV treatment and solutions.
ViiV Healthcare has also committed $5 million in funding through their Risk to Reasons community grant to support initiatives that focus on raising awareness about the importance of HIV prevention and care for Black women.
The program says their goal over the next three years, is to reach more than 1 million people with reasons for HIV prevention through their 17 awardees.
More than 3,500 providers are projected to be better positioned to deliver care for Black women.
According to a recent study, approximately 61% of new HIV diagnoses have been among women.
The study goes on to say that medicine that is taken such as PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis), by people who don’t have HIV to substantially lower the risk if they are exposed, has been low among U.S. women, particularly women of color.
