Key Legislative and Policy Milestones in New York’s Plan for Ending the AIDS Epidemic
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.
A brief how-to guide to the visualization
To find a new regulation, policy or piece of legislation, open the relevant Blueprint “Aim” and locate the pertinent Blueprint Recommendation along the left-hand side of the page (Figure 1).Additional information about each recommendation can be accessed by clicking on the blue BP buttons (e.g. BP1).
Hover over the orange circles located across each timeline for a short description of each policy milestone and then click again on either the orange circle or the drop down box to see additional details (Figure 2).
Please note that the policy tracker includes only legislation or policy changes made to date, and does not reflect initiatives that have been introduced but have not as yet been enacted or adopted. We anticipate updating the tracker on an annual basis, and your feedback is welcome.
The ETE Dashboard team would like to acknowledge and thank Housing Works for their significant contributions to the development of the ETE Policy Tracker.