Abstract
Background: Africa is far behind from achieving the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) 90-90-90 targets. Evidence shows that the participation of HIV patients as peer educators and other community health workers is substantially improving the entire HIV care continuum and subsequently the UNAIDS targets. This review aims to provide the best available evidence on the impact of peer educators and/or community health workers for the three targets in Africa. Methods: We will include cohort and experimental studies published in English between 2003 and 2020. Studies which reported interventions for HIV diagnosis, initiation of ART, or virological suppression will be included for review. Three steps searching will be conducted: (i) initial search across Google Scholar, (ii) full search strategy across five databases: MEDLINE, PubMed, CINAHL, SCOPUS and Web of Science, and (iii) screening titles and abstracts. Data will be extracted using standardized instruments from the Joanna Briggs Institute Meta-Analysis of Statistics Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-MAStARI) and analyzed through narrative synthesis, and meta-analyses and regression. Heterogeneity among quantitative studies will be assessed using Cochran Q test and Higgins I2. Ethics: A formal ethical approval will not be required as primary data will not be collected.
Highlights
HIV/AIDS has been an important public health disease since its emergence three decades ago [1].According to the 2017 Global Burden of Diseases (GBD 2017), 1.94 million people had new HIV infections, 36.8 million people were infected, and 0.94 million people died due to the virus globally [2]
The introduction of antiretroviral therapy (ART) contributed to the marked reduction in incidence, prevalence and AIDS-related death [3], negative outcomes related to all targets are paramount [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]
Evidence shows that involvement of these community health workers in Africa brought improvements in the entire HIV care continuum [32,33]
Summary
Impact of Peer Educators or Community Health Workers on the Progress of the UNAIDS 90-90-90. Epidemiology, School of Health Sciences, Mekelle University, Mekelle 231, Ethiopia. These authors contributed and share first authorship
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