Operations strategies in the recruitment process pre-exposure prophylaxis to HIV

Abstract

. Making HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) easily accessible to adolescents requires enabling and strategic recruitment and linkage to PrEP services. The PrEP1519 project is a single-arm, demonstration cohort study of daily oral antiretrovirals as PrEP among adolescent men who have sex with men (AMSM) and transgender women (ATGW) aged 15-19 years old in Brazil. The objective was to apply and analyze operational strategies in recruitment methods for prospecting adolescents in the context of social vulnerability. Participants were recruited by trained peer educators who engage with youth at gatherings, venues, events, and schools; through online social media and mobile apps. The data were collected between 2019-2020 in Salvador, Brazil. Based on a literature review, statistical methods were used to apply decision-making and operations management methods to direct recruitment strategies. Gender identity ( p= 0.006) and sexual orientation ( p= 0.007) were significantly relevant to recruitment meth-ods. Even without a large Pearson relationship, the construction of the cross-tab-ulation for the other variables facilitated decision-making to direct recruitment resources. Well-trained youth peer educators effectively recruit aMSH and aTGW for PrEP. However, recruiting needs direction for consistent decision-making to rethink or reinvent strategies or new paths when a strategy reaches its limit.