Culturally Appropriate Interventions of Outreach, Access and Retention among Latino/a Populations Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

This grant opportunity (HRSA-13-151) comes from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) under the Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) program. It funds a single organization to serve as the Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center (ETAC) for a national, multi-site initiative focused on improving outreach, access to care, and retention in HIV primary care for Latino/a populations in the United States. The award is structured as a cooperative agreement, meaning HRSA expects to be actively involved with the recipient throughout the project, particularly around evaluation design, implementation, and dissemination of results. The project period can last up to five years, with a maximum annual budget noted at $550,000, and there is no cost sharing or matching requirement.

The ETAC award supports one central organization that will assist and evaluate up to eight separate demonstration projects funded under a different companion announcement (HRSA-13-154). A key eligibility rule is that an applicant may not apply for both the ETAC and the Demonstration Sites funding opportunities; organizations must choose one or the other. The demonstration sites are the groups that will test and implement culturally appropriate service delivery models, while the ETAC is responsible for helping those sites succeed, measuring what happens across sites, and translating the lessons into products that can be used nationally.

The underlying purpose of the initiative is to address persistent disparities in HIV outcomes affecting Latino/a communities. The announcement emphasizes that Latino/as are disproportionately impacted by HIV in the U.S., with data cited showing higher diagnosis rates relative to population size and a substantial share of people living with HIV who are unaware of their status. The FOA highlights specific subpopulations and risk contexts that contribute to these disparities, including Latino gay and bisexual men (who represent a large portion of new infections among Latino men), Latina women (with infections largely attributed to heterosexual contact and also injection drug use), and transgender Latina women (for whom studies have reported very high prevalence ranges). The initiative also prioritizes geographic areas with high concentrations of Latino/as and high HIV incidence or prevalence, particularly urban settings.

A defining feature of this SPNS initiative is its transnational approach. Demonstration projects are expected to propose innovative interventions for HIV-affected Latino/a subpopulations living in the U.S. that are tailored to the participants country of origin. In practice, this means interventions should reflect differences in language, migration experiences, cultural norms, health beliefs, community networks, and cross-border or transnational ties that can influence HIV risk, testing behaviors, and sustained engagement in care.

The initiative targets several critical points along the HIV continuum of care for Latino/as. The focus includes people at high risk of infection, people living with HIV who do not know their status, people who know their status but have never entered care, people who refused referral to care, and people who were in care but dropped out. Demonstration sites are expected to develop approaches that improve identification of individuals at risk or living with HIV, increase timely linkage and entry into quality HIV primary care, and strengthen retention over time. The FOA explicitly mentions populations of interest that may be served by the demonstration sites, including heterosexual men and women, gay and bisexual men, bisexual women, transgender women, and injecting drug users.

The ETAC is required to carry out three core functions across the full initiative. First, it must provide ongoing technical assistance to the demonstration projects for the duration of the initiative, which typically includes support with program implementation, culturally appropriate service design, data collection systems, quality improvement, fidelity to intervention models, and troubleshooting barriers that arise in real-world settings. Second, it must lead a rigorous multi-site evaluation that assesses both how the interventions are implemented and what outcomes they achieve, looking across all sites as well as the combined multi-site cohort. Third, it must take the lead in publication and dissemination, coordinating the production of findings, lessons learned, and practical tools that can inform HIV service delivery for Latino/a communities beyond the funded sites.

HRSA signals clearly what it expects to see in a strong ETAC application. The applicant should demonstrate deep expertise specifically in engagement and retention in HIV primary care, not just HIV services in general. The application is expected to include a literature review showing a detailed understanding of Latino/a populations and the real-world challenges of identifying individuals who are unaware of their HIV status, linking newly diagnosed individuals to care, and keeping people engaged over time. Applicants are also expected to discuss sociocultural and structural barriers that affect access and retention, with special emphasis on stigma, as well as related barriers that often intersect with stigma such as language access, immigration concerns, discrimination, poverty, transportation, unstable housing, limited insurance coverage, fear of disclosure within tight-knit communities, and mistrust of systems. In addition, applicants should summarize the factors driving HIV incidence and prevalence among Latino/as using the most recent available data, and then translate that understanding into a multi-site evaluation plan designed to expand knowledge about disparities in HIV health outcomes among Latino populations living in the U.S.

In terms of who can apply, the FOA lists a wide range of eligible applicants, including public and private nonprofit entities, faith-based and community-based organizations, institutions of higher education (public or private), and other nonprofits with IRS 501(c)(3) status. Various government entities are also listed as eligible in the opportunity metadata. Regardless of organizational type, the announcement stresses that applicants must have significant experience relevant to the work, given that the ETAC role requires both methodological strength (evaluation across multiple sites) and practical capacity (hands-on technical assistance with diverse community-based demonstration projects).

At a basic level, this funding is not for running a single local HIV program. It is for acting as the national backbone for a coordinated set of local demonstration projects, ensuring they are supported, evaluated in a consistent and credible way, and that the resulting evidence and practical guidance are shared widely to improve HIV outreach, linkage, and long-term care retention for Latino/a communities across the country.

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