A Social Network Approach for Improving Medication Assisted Treatment and HIV

The, goal of the intervention is to increase medication assisted treatment (MAT) uptake and retention in order to enhance as well as HIV medical care and antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence among those social network members who use drugs and those living with HIV who use drugs. The project will quantitatively and qualitatively assess barriers to MAT and ART uptake and adherence, while using peer educators to promote MAT and ART among their network members. Finally, the project aims to determine the effect size for guiding the planning of larger intervention and the feasibility and acceptability of this intervention for HIV prevention and improvement in HIV-related health outcomes among people living with HIV who inject drugs (PLWH PWID). The intervention will be deployed in Ukraine, a setting with high HIV incidence rates among PWID, low levels of viral suppression among HIV positive PWID, and low rates of MAT uptake.