title: Community-based rapid HIV testing in homeless and marginally housed adults in San Francisco.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Standard two-step HIV testing is limited by poor return-for-results rates and misses high-risk individuals who do not access conventional testing facilities.
  
  
  METHODS
  We describe a community-based rapid HIV testing programme in which homeless and marginally housed adults recruited from shelters, free meal programmes and single room occupancy hotels in San Francisco received OraQuick Rapid HIV-1 Antibody testing (OraSure Technologies, Bethlehem, PA, USA).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Over 8 months, 1614 adults were invited to participate and 1213 (75.2%) underwent testing. HIV seroprevalence was 15.4% (187 of 1213 individuals) overall and 3.5% (37 of 1063) amongst high-risk individuals reporting no previous testing, a prior negative test, or previous testing without result disclosure. All 1213 participants received their results. Of 30 newly diagnosed persons who received confirmatory results, 26 (86.7%) reported at least one contact with a primary healthcare provider in the 6 months following diagnosis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that community-based rapid testing is feasible, acceptable and effective based on the numbers of high-risk persons tested over a short period, the participation rate, the prevalence of new infection, the rate of result disclosure, and the proportion linked to care.
authors.affiliation: University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
authors.forename: J B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Buchér
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Guzman
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Riley
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dela Cruz
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Bangsberg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003153:Community Health Services; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D015528:HIV Seroprevalence; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006703:Ill-Housed Persons; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012495:San Francisco / Q000453:epidemiology; D014504:Urban Health; D019037:Urban Health Services