CDC's Community-Based Organization Behavioral Outcomes Project: Perspectives for Researchers, Implementers and Funders.

Williams, Weston O; Uhl, Gary; Eke, Adanze; Fisher, Holly; Joshua, Tanesha; Heitgerd, Janet; Marano, Mariette; Moore, Andrea; Sapiano, Tobey; Shelley, Gene; Stein, Renee

Behavioral interventions have been a crucial tool for the prevention of HIV transmission since early in the epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has provided funding for evidence-based behavioral interventions (EBIs) at health departments and community-based organizations (CBOs) since 2004. From 2006 to 2015, CDC funded 25 CBOs to evaluate one or more of seven EBIs designed to prevent HIV through the Community-based Organization Behavioral Outcomes Project (CBOP) as implemented outside of a research setting. For each EBI, CBOP showed that most HIV risk behaviors improved after the intervention, and improvements were similar to those observed in research studies. Our findings show that behavioral interventions can be successfully implemented in real-world settings. Although the focus of HIV prevention has largely shifted toward biomedical interventions in recent years, successful implementation often depends on behavioral components. Lessons from CBOP can inform future efforts to develop and implement behavioral interventions for HIV and other areas of public health.