{"doi":"10.17615/8d35-sm05","title":"Exploring intersectional stigma and COVID-19 impact on human immunodeficiency virus service provision for African Americans in a Southern city","abstract":"Aims/objectives: Through interviews with clinical service providers, we explored stigma's impact on HIV service provision for African Americans during COVID-19. Background: African Americans experience disproportionate rates of HIV and COVID-19. We explored COVID-19's impact on HIV services for African American adults in a Southern city. Design: The study was qualitative and observational. Methods: Key informant interviews were conducted (n = 11) across two healthcare centres and two community-based organisations and thematically analysed using phenomenological approaches by two coders. Interviews explored pre- and post-COVID-19 service provision and parallels between COVID-19 and HIV, particularly as related to stigma. The COREQ checklist was utilised to ensure research quality. Results: According to the providers interviewed, all providers offered HIV prevention/treatment, but PrEP and preventive services diminished greatly early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Successful transition to telehealth depended on existing telehealth use. Challenges exacerbated by COVID-19 included food/housing insecurity and physical distancing constraints. Clients' COVID-19 informational needs shifted from concerns to vaccine requests over time. Interviewees stated HIV and COVID-19 both carry ‘risk taking’; however, HIV risk was more physically intimate than COVID-19. Notably, some providers used stigmatising language referring to clients with HIV/COVID and omitted person-centred language. Conclusions: Findings suggest need to address challenges in telehealth to improve client experiences now and for future pandemics. More research is needed to examine intersectional stigmatisation of COVID-19 and HIV for African Americans to design person-centred counselling interventions. Relevance to Clinical Practice: Results demonstrate need for provider training to reframe stigma discussions using client centeredness, educating African Americans on HIV and COVID-19 prevention, and coordination with local organisations to address multiple care needs. Patient/Public Contribution: This research highlights needs of clients based on the views of healthcare providers caring for predominantly African American communities in a Southern city. However, no patients, service users, caregivers or members of the public were directly involved in this study.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2023,"id":389048,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9204,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1159384,"name":"Aimone E.V.","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1159385,"name":"Maragh-Bass A.C.","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":612097,"name":"Kathleen M. MacQueen","orcid":"0000-0003-2436-4741","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1159383,"name":"Aikhuele E.O.","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:18:22.323414Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}