Developing a Comprehensive Toolkit to Guide Dissemination and Implementation of an Efficacious HIV Prevention Intervention for Latino Men

Introduction: Although Latino communities bear a disproportionate burden of HIV infection, evidence-based HIV prevention interventions for Latino men are lacking. HoMBReS Por un Cambio is a lay health advisor (LHA) intervention in which LHAs (known as Navegantes) are trained and supported to promote sexual health among members of their soccer team-based social networks for 12 months. Informed by the lived experiences of immigrant Latino men, perspectives of organization representatives, and social cognitive and empowerment theories, this intervention was found to be efficacious in reducing the HIV risk among immigrant Latino men in the Southeast.

Methods: In order to facilitate dissemination, uptake, and sustainability of HoMBReS Por un Cambio, a community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnership is studying the dissemination and implementation process with 3 community-based organizations (CBOs) that represent typical community-level providers of HIV and STD prevention interventions (i.e., an AIDS service organization, a Latino-serving organization, and a county public health department). We developed a comprehensive toolkit to build CBO capacity to implement and sustain the HoMBReS Por un Cambio intervention with fidelity.

Results: The toolkit contains 13 sections that support all aspects of intervention planning, implementation, and sustainability. The sections were based on partner-identified implementation needs and address domains outlined by “scale-up and spread,” an implementation framework designed to facilitate dissemination and implementation of interventions. Sections provide guidance on: staffing and budget requirements for HoMBReS Por un Cambio, selecting and retaining Navegantes, increasing CBO knowledge about HIV and STDs and about the experiences of immigrant Latinos in the US, working cross-culturally, engaging Latino soccer leagues as partners in health promotion and disease prevention, coordinating tasks and materials needed for implementation, identifying local resources, best practices to ensure confidentiality and community trust, evaluation, and grant writing and resource development. We employed a collaborative, iterative approach to develop the toolkit including the use of a cloud storage and file synchronization software that facilitated multiple partners working on sections concurrently and two different internal review processes, to facilitate the creation of sections and review of all sections.

Conclusion: This project explores and informs processes in developing comprehensive tools for dissemination and implementation guided by CBPR principles, based in the real-world experiences of community-based organizations, and rooted in the emerging science of dissemination and implementation research.