Field Placement: Los Angeles County Department of Health Services -- HIV Epidemiology Program
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Preceptor: Mi Suk Harlan, MSPH, Chief, Data Acquisition Unit
Student Name: Nicole Gatto
Year: 2002

Implementation of HIV Reporting by Non-Name Code in Los Angeles County

BACKGROUND: In May 2002, the State of California created Section 2600 to Article 3.5 of Title 17 of the California Code of Regulations requiring laboratories, health care providers, and confidential HIV test sites to report all cases of HIV infection to their local health department starting July 1, 2002. The County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services will need to provide direction in the implementation of this regulation in order that labs and providers be adequately prepared to perform HIV reporting and be able to train their staff on reporting requirements and methods.

METHODS: As part of my summer internship with the HIV Epidemiology Program, I focused my efforts on the implementation of the new regulation. I provided education, training and technical assistance to labs and health care providers through formal Power Point presentations or through informal meetings. I responded to phone inquiries. I distributed informational materials on reporting and the regulation to interested parties. I arranged for formal in-services to be held by a state contractor. In addition, I developed an evaluation tool to assess the effectiveness of the training presentations. I designed an Access database to store and manage data collected from the evaluations, and I acquired an introduction to SAS to perform simple analyses. Finally, I wrote two research proposals to address selected issues in the epidemiology of HIV in Los Angeles County.

RESULTS: From July 9 to September 27, 2002, I conducted 5 site visits, and provided education and training to more than 60 health care providers; I answered over 30 phone calls. Evaluations were completed by 36 trainees. The number of providers reporting increased from 0 to 175 during this time period, with 31% of 566 total number of providers reporting as of September 27, 2002. The number of labs reporting increased from 0 to 65 during this time period, with 25% of the 257 labs in Los Angeles County reporting as of September 27, 2002.

DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: Efforts to provide education and training were effective in increasing the number of health care providers and laboratories reporting and therefore useful in implementing the regulation. Two potential secondary data analyses were proposed and may be the focus of future projects at the HIV Epidemiology Program.

Back to CHS Field Studies Placement Index | Back to CHS Field Studies | Back to Field Studies Home