New York State’s Ending the Epidemic (ETE) Blueprint includes a three-point plan and recommended actions to minimize new infections and engage and retain persons with HIV in effective treatment, to end the epidemic by stopping transmission and sustaining optimal health. These recommendations emphasize key populations, programmatic and implementation strategies, as well as important legislative and policy goals central to New York’s ETE initiative.

With the launch of the ETE Dashboard Policy Tracker, stakeholders can now view and explore progress to date on the ETE policy platform in New York. The policy tracker documents the multiple proposals that have been adopted or enacted into laws and regulations since 2014, when the ETE Initiative was first announced, and is organized by Blueprint Recommendation.

Some examples of the legislative and policy milestones in this new visualization include:

  • Expanding access to PrEP by establishing a Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Assistance Program (PrEP-AP)
  • Streamlining HIV testing
  • Expanding access to HIV care for uninsured and underinsured persons
  • Addressing the legality of syringes obtained through syringe exchange and access programs
  • Adding gender identity or expression to the existing human rights law in New York State
  • Enabling minor consent and confidentiality around HIV treatment, prevention and care coordination

Highlights of major achievements and their importance to ETE

The community, government and health providers that came together in 2014 as the NYS ETE Task Force identified a number of

legislative, regulatory and policy changes required in order to fully implement ETE Blueprint recommendations.  Work to realize these policy changes has been a key component of ETE implementation, including removing barriers to comprehensive HIV prevention, improving rapid treatment initiation and retention in effective care, addressing drug user health, and improving quality of life by extending human rights protections for transgender New Yorkers and creating new peer health worker opportunities for HIV positive persons. This policy agenda is designed to enhance the NYS HIV response and reduce health disparities, and changes to date have been fundamental to New York’s significant progress towards our ETE goals.  New York’s ETE policy tracker reflects the significant progress to date and serves as a guide for the legislative and policy work that remains.

The Ending the Epidemic (ETE) Dashboard was designed and developed by the Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy of the City University of New York.  The purpose of the ETE Dashboard is to measure, track and disseminate actionable information on progress towards achieving New York State’s Ending the Epidemic Initiative’s goals to all interested stakeholders.The ETE Dashboard project is funded by the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute.

www.etedashboardny.org

@ETEDashboardNY