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Technical Assistance

The ETAP's efforts on this project are guided by four goals:

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1. Provide technical assistance (TA) and capacity building assistance (CBA) to the recipients

The ETAP will provide TA and CBA to the recipients in areas of intervention adaptation, implementation, and evaluation. The ETAP will provide training and other resources and tools specifically tailored to the selected evidence-informed interventions and/or models of care. The ETAP will assess recipient TA/CBA needs and will be responsible for the provision of evaluation-related TA to the recipients. These overall TA/CBA goals will be achieved through regular face-to-face meetings, site visits, website resources, office hours, and monthly teleconferences with the grantees and designated HRSA program staff over the course of the project.

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2. Implement a comprehensive Multi-site Evaluation (MSE) to assess process, outcomes, impact, and cost of adapting and implementing interventions/MOCs at the programmatic, clinical, and client levels

To support the HRSA SPNS team in its efforts to evaluate community-based efforts to improve health outcomes among BMSM living with HIV, the ETAP will conduct a national multi-site, mixed-methods evaluation of the Initiative, which will synthesize findings across all recipients to assess implementation, outcomes, and overall performance of the Initiative. The MSE aims are to: (1) assess processes associated with implementing evidence-informed interventions, including barriers and facilitators to implementation; (2) assess whether the evidence-informed interventions impact clinical and behavioral outcomes; (3) assess the costs of adapting and implementing the interventions/MOCs by measuring labor and programmatic costs and expenditures incurred by each site.

The ETAP will conduct a Culturally Responsive Evaluation (CRE) of the Initiative. CRE is a holistic, theoretical framework that centers an evaluation in culture and guides the evaluation to ensure that culturally defined values and beliefs influence all steps in the evaluation (e.g., design, evaluation questions, instrument development, etc.). Using a CRE framework requires that evaluators remain steadfastly attentive to how race, culture, racism, sexual orientation, homelessness, and poverty influence and intersect to influence adaptation, and implementation and contribute to expected Initiative outcomes to improve target population health outcomes along the HIV continuum.

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3. Develop and disseminate successful models, findings, best practices and lessons to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) community

Identifying and sharing best practices and lessons learned from this Initiative is a major priority for the ETAP. The ETAP will identify federal and grant recipient partners, with expertise in the areas of product development, health communications, and data visualization, to participate in a publications and disseminations committee. With the guidance of this committee, the ETAP will develop a range of dissemination products, including implementation manuals, toolkits, and a final report. The ETAP will also engage this committee to identify target audiences for each product, as well as possible venues for dissemination.

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4. Promote successful replication of effective evidence-informed interventions and/or models of care, trainings, publications, and other dissemination products

Another goal of the ETAP, and complimentary to dissemination, is to promote the replication of successful interventions/MOCs. The ETAP will work with the AIDS Education and Training Centers (AETC) to determine the best way to promote replication among their stakeholders. Possible formats may include webinars, toolkits, and stakeholder websites. Sources of information for replicationfocused products will include evaluation reports, peer-reviewed manuscripts, briefs, program protocols, and other materials generated during the course of the evaluation, as well as implementation manuals. Possible topics included in these products include:

  • Engaging stakeholders
  • Operating in low-resource settings
  • Establishing partnerships
  • Identifying an appropriate intervention and/or model of care
  • Retaining participants
  • Social determinants of health
  • Selecting performance measures
  • Disseminating findings

This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number U90HA31812. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.