Enhancing STI and Sexual Health Clinical Infrastructure (ESSHCI)

Enhancing STI and Sexual Health Clinical Infrastructure (ESSHCI) is sponsored by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This NOFO aims to increase clinic capacity to provide quality comprehensive sexual health services and increase access to quality, stigma-free STI care and comprehensive sexual health services.

ESSHCI Clinical NOFO Partner Announcement | STI | CDC Skip directly to site content ESSHCI Clinical NOFO Partner Announcement This Dear Colleague Letter highlights the Enhancing STI and Sexual Health Clinic Infrastructure (ESSHCI) Clinical NOFO Partner Announcement. This week, CDC awarded a total of $12.

5 million to 26 recipients to strengthen clinic infrastructure and expand access to comprehensive sexual health services in communities with high sexually transmitted infection (STI) burden and unmet need for STI clinical services. This award was made through a new funding opportunity PS-23-0011 : Enhancing STI and Sexual Health Clinic Infrastructure (ESSHCI) .

ESSHCI's first year of funding has been provided by the ongoing federal Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. (EHE) initiative , which aims to reduce new HIV infections in the United States by 90% by 2030. The existing infrastructure of sexual health clinics (i.e., STI clinics) is insufficient to address the STI epidemic in the United States.

CDC recognizes that if additional efforts are not taken to expand the breadth of sexual health services in the communities most impacted by STIs, the nation will continue to see an upward trajectory in these infections.

To help address this challenge, ESSHCI will increase participating clinics' capacity to provide quality comprehensive sexual health services, leading to increased access to quality, stigma-free sexual health services in underserved communities. ESSHCI is committed to building active and meaningful engagements with communities disproportionately impacted by HIV and other STIs.

Both EHE and ESSHCI are focused on implementing equitable, community-informed prevention strategies.

Under ESSHCI, recipients will implement two required strategies and one optional strategy: Strategy A – Foster Community Engagement and Partnerships: This strategy requires that recipients build active and meaningful engagements with communities of priority populations affected by the STI epidemic and mobilize public health partners to develop a clinic-level plan that increases access to quality comprehensive sexual health services.

Strategy A planning activities will take place in Year 1. Strategy B – Strengthen Clinic Infrastructure and Provision of Sexual Health Services: This strategy requires that recipients create a new sexual health clinic or expand an existing clinic to include specialized STI and sexual health services. Strategy B implementation activities will take place in Years 1 through 5.

Strategy C – Expand Access to STI Prevention & Other Sexual Health Services Supporting a Syndemic Approach: Strategy C is an optional, competitive strategy for Years 1 through 5. If funded under Strategy C, recipients will conduct short-term activities in support of a syndemic approach.

While five ESSHCI recipients are proposing brand new sexual health clinics, most recipients will be expanding sexual health services in existing clinics. These clinical settings include primary care clinics, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and FQHC look-alikes, teen health clinics, community health centers, and more.

CDC looks forward to working with the following partners in our continued efforts to end the syndemic of STIs and HIV in the U.S. Here are the ESSHCI Recipients for year one and their funding amounts.

Family Health Centers of San Diego, Inc. Community Health Center, Inc. Chase Brexton Health Services, Inc. Courage Medicine Health Center, Inc. New Jersey Community Research Initiative Puerto Rico Community Network for Clinical Services, Research and Health Advancement University of Mississippi Medical Center San Francisco AIDS Foundation Comprehensive Health Center Department of Public Health Mobile County Board of Health Services of Central Ohio, Inc. Questions about the ESSHCI work may be directed to DSTDP Program Development and Evaluation Branch Chief, Dr. Stanley Wei ( bge3@cdc.

gov ). As always, thank you for your unwavering dedication to STI and HIV prevention. Leandro Mena, MD, MPH, FIDSA Division of STD Prevention National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention ; About Division of STD Prevention STIs are common.

Many are curable - all are preventable.