Population & Family Health

This project, funded by the Office of Population Affairs (OPA), DHHS, is designed to develop, pilot and evaluate a new model of outreach for sexual health promotion among disconnected men of color in northern Manhattan. The traditional outreach model is to place an outreach worker in community settings where the target group congregate. This model is costly and limited in reach.

The capacity-building model of sexual health promotion and linkages embeds sexual health information, messages and referrals into the physical and virtual environments as well as the operations of non-health related community-based organizations that serve men (e.g. workforce development programs, prison re-entry programs). This is accomplished by the use of written health education materials, posters, screen savers on computers used by program participants, materials embedded into the organizations website, and revised intake procedures that include brief questions about utilization of health care and referrals to local, affordable, male friendly providers for men who are not connected to the health care system.

The project involves a year of formative research for model development, followed by implementation and evaluation of the model. Our community partners for this project are Exodus Transitional Community a prison re-entry program in East Harlem and Seedco, a workforce development programs in central Harlem.

In addition to developing demand for health and sexual health care services, this project will increase the supply of male-friendly health care services. This component involves conducting a male friendliness assessment based on staff and client interviews and clinic observation at a federally funded primary health care clinic in Harlem and then providing training and technical assistance to the clinic based on the results of that assessment.