Chair Schulman on older adult sexual health and outreach

During a recent council roundtable run by myself and Chair Lee,

We heard from multiple community-based organizations that older adult sexual health is often overlooked.

Has DOHMH observed increases in STI rates among older adults, and what outreach or education efforts are underway for this population?

Pass it to Dr.

Bronson.

Thank you for this question.

I was actually quite glad to see this because this is an area that we've been interested in and actively pursuing for a while.

So just in terms of your question, Chair Schulman, about the HIV rates, in 2024, 282 people ages 50 and older were newly diagnosed with HIV in New York City.

And that was an increase of 18% from the prior year, 2023.

However, that was a bit of an aberrant trend in that from 2019 to 2024, we did observe an 8% decrease in the number of HIV diagnoses among this group.

But nonetheless, we also know that older people constitute a majority of people living with HIV in the city.

So not just being newly affected by HIV, but in terms of current burden.

In terms of other STIs, I'll just mention that from 2019 to 2024, case rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea, primary and secondary syphilis, and early latent syphilis among people ages 60 and older remain stable.

The health department does a lot of work to both prevent HIV and STIs in this population and to educate the population about available services.

services, risk, et cetera.

So for example, we are preparing to release a request for proposals for a new sexual health and aging resources and training for clinical providers, what we're calling SHARP program.

And this is to fund an organization that will develop and offer clinical trainings and provider and patient facing resources to enhance primary care providers'capacity to initiate sexual health conversations, take sexual health histories,

and implement routine opt-out HIV and STI screening among patients 50 and older.

And we anticipate funding that organization who is successfully awarded in the fall.

We also have our Be Into Health program that supports HIV clinics around the city to do evidence-based interventions to promote retention in HIV care.

And we expect to fund four clinics in this program to focus specifically on black and Latino people ages 50 and older and address their needs.

Our Ryan White program also has an outpatient ambulatory services program.

And within that, there's a focus on the needs of people living with HIV who are older.

Our housing services program, our housing opportunities for people with HIV, also funds three organizations to provide housing assistance and supportive services to income eligible people who are ages 55 and older.

So as you can see, we have a lot of programming in this area and continue to do that.

invest so that our older New Yorkers can be sexually healthy.

What?