PrEP Awareness and Acceptability among Women Involved in the Criminal Justice System (PRISM)

Project PRISM is a pilot study funded by the Center for AIDS Research at the University of California San Francisco Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology. Despite PrEP being an important HIV-prevention tool, the bulk of the empirical literature in the United States (US) has focused on men who have sex with men. Women at high-risk of HIV infection in the US are largely absent from this body of literature. The purpose of this exploratory, qualitative study was two-fold: 1) understand knowledge and attitudes related to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among criminal justice involved women, and 2) determine factors in both the public health and criminal justice systems that hinder or facilitate PrEP initiation among  criminal justice involved women. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with criminal justice involved women, and stakeholders from the public health and criminal justice systems. Findings from this study are being used to develop and test HIV-prevention interventions for criminal justice involved women.