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Health Equity & Community Care
Advancing health equity through community-centered care, addressing disparities in access, and policy solutions for underserved populations.


Congenital Syphilis Is Preventable, When We Can Treat It
Congenital syphilis has risen for 12 consecutive years — not because we lack a cure, but because the only approved treatment is in shortage, coverage is shrinking in the hardest-hit states, and immigration fear is keeping pregnant people away from the prenatal care where screening happens. The tools exist. The system keeps failing to deliver them.

Travis Roppolo
1 day ago7 min read


The Quiet Reconstruction of HCV Treatment Restrictions
Formulary cuts, fibrosis staging requirements making a comeback, and the near-disappearance of HCV charitable assistance programs — CANN's Q3 2026 HIV/HCV Co-Infection Watch maps a deteriorating access landscape for people living with HIV/HCV co-infection.

Ranier Simons
Aug 33 min read


The Encounters Happened. The Prevention Didn't.
Most people who received an HIV diagnosis had already been sitting in a provider's office in the year before — and left without a test or a PrEP conversation. CDC's SHIELD study maps exactly where the healthcare system had contact and did nothing with it, and the fixes are specific enough to act on now.

Travis Roppolo
Jul 278 min read


The Future of Prescription Drug Affordability Boards and Upper Payment Limits Is Cloudy
Prescription Drug Affordability Boards are operating in states across the country, but their primary tool — Upper Payment Limits — threatens pharmacies, Medicaid programs, and the patients they're supposed to help. The evidence is mounting that UPLs are the wrong solution to a real problem.

Ranier Simons
Jul 135 min read


A Referral Is Not a Strategy for Aging With HIV
More than half of people living with HIV in the U.S. are now 50 or older—a public health success that demands more than good referral networks. Building HIV-inclusive aging organizations means developing real capacity before someone ever needs to be sent somewhere else.

David “Jax” Kelly, JD, MPH, MBA
Jul 64 min read


A Functional Cure for Hepatitis B Is Within Reach. Whether It Reaches Patients Is Not Yet Decided.
For the first time, a finite course of therapy has produced a functional cure for chronic hepatitis B in large-scale phase 3 trials, but the communities carrying the heaviest burden of this disease are also the least likely to be screened, diagnosed, or insured. Whether this milestone translates into population-level progress is a policy question, not a scientific one.

Travis Roppolo
Jun 225 min read


Political Veto: How OMB's Grant Rule Puts EHE at Risk
A proposed OMB rule would let political appointees veto or cancel federal research grants, dismantling the peer-review system and targeting the disparate-impact analysis that maps where HIV concentrates and why. For people living with HIV, that research is the foundation of Ending the HIV Epidemic. The comment period closes July 13.

Travis Roppolo
Jun 85 min read


Ebola, TB, and the Cost of Walking Away from Global Health
On April 24, 2026, a nurse in Ituri Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) developed a fever. She died three days later. Her samples were tested locally and returned negative, because...

Travis Roppolo
Jun 17 min read


The Last Clean Snapshot: What the CDC's 2024 HIV Data Tells Us About What Comes Next
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its National HIV Prevention and Care Objectives: 2026 Update on May 18, 2026, presenting the most recent national picture of the U.S. HIV...

Travis Roppolo
May 255 min read


When the Target Is SSRIs, the Risk Is the Six Protected Classes
On May 4, 2026, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. closed a daylong Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Institute summit on mental health and overmedicalization by announcing a federal initiative...

Travis Roppolo
May 186 min read


The Policy Stack: How SAMHSA, the White House, and Louisiana Are Rewriting Drug and Homelessness Response
On April 24, 2026, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issued a Dear Colleague letter that withdraws federal funding eligibility from fentanyl test strips, sterile...

Travis Roppolo
May 119 min read


Building Stronger Communities, Together: Reflections from Our Patient Affordability Roundtable
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on April 10, 2026, by Lupus Colorado and is republished here with permission. The Patient Affordability Roundtable discussed in this piece was...

Kristy Kibler
Apr 203 min read


The Story of Us: How Celebrity Voices Have Shaped HIV Advocacy for Four Decades
On April 1, Taylor Swift dropped a surprise music video for her song "Elizabeth Taylor," directing streaming royalties to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF). Two weeks earlier, on March 18,...

Travis Roppolo
Apr 135 min read


A New Single-Tablet Option for HIV's "Forgotten Population" Could Change Lives. Will Policy Let It?
New Phase 3 data show a single-tablet regimen of bictegravir/lenacapavir could finally bring one-pill simplicity to long-term HIV survivors locked into complex regimens by decades of drug resistance. The science is closing the treatment gap. Will our policy systems do the same?

Travis Roppolo
Mar 309 min read


The False Economy of Rationing Life
States are rationing HIV medications through prior auth and formulary cuts to solve ADAP budget crises — a strategy that costs more, drives resistance, and concentrates harm on the most vulnerable.

Travis Roppolo
Mar 235 min read


CROI 2026: The Tools Are Here. The Infrastructure Is Not.
CROI 2026 showcased breakthroughs alongside funding crisis disrupting global and domestic HIV services.

Travis Roppolo
Mar 87 min read


ADAPs Work. Federal Policy Is Defunding Them on Accident.
ADAPs achieve 87% viral suppression but face funding crisis as multiple policies erode 340B rebates.

Travis Roppolo
Mar 16 min read


The Great American Recovery Needs More Than a Slogan
Administration expands OUD medication access while defunding SAMHSA and restricting harm reduction.

Travis Roppolo
Feb 86 min read


Congress Rejects HIV Cuts, But Flat Funding Won't End the Epidemic
FY2026 preserves HIV funding but level funding can't support long-acting therapeutics or growing needs.

Travis Roppolo
Feb 17 min read


Florida's ADAP Cuts Put 16,000 People Living with HIV at Risk
Florida ADAP cuts eligibility from 400% to 130% FPL, threatening 16,000 PLWHA.

Travis Roppolo
Jan 256 min read
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