HIV/STIs, Sexual Health and Latino/x/e communities in Oregon

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Me Cuido, Te Cuido Talleres Comunitarios

END HIV Oregon Annual Progress Report

Our Program

With the support of the Oregon Health Authority and Washington County, Familias en Accións’ HIV/ STI Sexual HealthProgram was started in April 2020. We recognize that HIV/STIs are important health topics and there is a great need to include sexual health in a broader conversation about health and wellbeing. The Latino/x/e community in Oregon is disproportionately impacted by HIV and other Sexually transmitted infections due to a number of factors that contribute to decreased access to prevention including HIV/ STI testing. It is recommended that everyone get tested for HIV at least once in their lifetimes, and yet less than half of adults in Oregon have been tested. In 2021 we were fortunate to start a new partnership with Cascade AIDS Project (CAP) to hire a new HIV Prevention Coordinator. This position is dedicated to doing more outreach to spanish-speaking community members as well as providing culturally responsive HIV and comprehensive STI testing in Spanish in the clinic setting and at community health fairs and other events. We hope that this new opportunity will allow us to increase access to testing and other resources for our community members.

We recognize that community participation is essential in formulating a more effective strategy to combat HIV/AIDS in Oregon. Long-term community engagement will be critical to sustaining the involvement of communities in any type of decision-making and activities. Through community focus groups and lots of collaboration with community partners, we created Me Cuido, Te Cuido: Programa para el fomento de la salud sexual y la prevención de enfermedades de transmisión sexual en la comunidad latina en Oregon. Me Cuido, Te Cuido is a culturally responsive curriculum created in Spanish.

In our first few years, we have developed relationships with community based organizations (CBOs) that are either Latino/x/e-specific or have programming for Latino/x/e communities. These formative relationships have included:

Training community health workers or volunteers from partner CBOs with our sexual health curriculum, Me Cuido, Te Cuido, and becoming community class facilitators
Sharing county-specific resources for sexual health and HIV/STI prevention and treatment
Maintaining ongoing communications to support facilitators with their community classes, or talleres, and update them on new or changed information for sexual health resources
Providing rapid HIV testing at community health fairs and other events and leading other community outreach efforts

Our first few years focused on building relationships in the Portland Metro area but we have more recently been engaging with organizations across the state and we aim to continue to do so!

MISSION:

Our program engages Latino/x/e communities in Oregon to help implement community-driven solutions that reduce HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Through community-centered education, testing, and outreach we expand access to resources and information and normalize conversations about sexual health.