HIV PrEP & PEP in Primary Care

Thursday, March 19, 2026

🔬 Practice‑Changing Findings
Evidence from RCTs and meta‑analyses published in the last 12 months.

1. A Group Concept Mapping Study of Client and Clinician Perspectives on Scaling up HIV PrEP and doxy-PEP in Primary Care.

AIDS patient care and STDs (2026) - Journal Article

Key Findings

Six thematic implementation clusters identified 49 high-priority, high-feasibility strategies expected to improve PrEP/doxy-PEP scale-up in primary care.
Top-ranked priorities were routine nonjudgmental prevention education, SGM-affirming clinicians, welcoming clinic environments, and clinician training to improve uptake and persistence.

📋 Practice Implication: Operationalize a standardized, stigma-reducing prevention workflow in routine visits, with explicit staff competencies for SGM-affirming PrEP/PEP counseling.

2. Client Priorities for Improving PrEP and doxy-PEP Awareness, Uptake, and Persistence in Primary Care.

Nursing research (2026) - Journal Article

Key Findings

In 4 focus groups (n=26), healthcare access, cost, stigma/discrimination, and multiple required visits were linked to reduced PrEP/doxy-PEP uptake and persistence.
Community support, targeted social media messaging, and affirming providers were identified as factors that improve awareness and ongoing engagement.

📋 Practice Implication: Adopt low-friction initiation pathways (including same-day where feasible) and pair them with culturally tailored outreach to improve retention.

3. Pharmacy HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis/post-exposure prophylaxis furnishing: The benefits of collaborating with peer navigators.

Journal of the American Pharmacists Association : JAPhA (2025) - Journal Article

Key Findings

Across 238 pharmacy encounters, 81.9% resulted in a scheduled follow-up and 80.0% of scheduled visits were attended.
Network-level PrEP enrollment rose from 239 to 339 patients over 2 years (41.8% increase).

📋 Practice Implication: Use pharmacist-plus-peer-navigator care models to increase access and convert initial PrEP/PEP contact into sustained clinical follow-up.

4. Factors Influencing Oral Pre-, Post-, and Doxycycline Post-Exposure Prophylaxis Uptake Among Substance-Using Men Who Have Sex with Men in the Rural Southern US.

AIDS patient care and STDs (2025) - Journal Article

Key Findings

In rural MSM (n=345), PrEP use was associated with HIV-negative status, recent STI diagnosis, HIV testing, and especially STI testing (odds ratio aOR 10.09 for STI testing).
PEP and doxy-PEP use were associated with recent STI diagnosis (odds ratio signals), indicating clustered prevention opportunities around STI-care encounters.

📋 Practice Implication: Make STI/HIV testing visits a default trigger for immediate PrEP/PEP/doxy-PEP eligibility review and prescribing pathways in rural primary care settings.

Recent primary-care-focused evidence highlights that PrEP/PEP scale-up depends less on efficacy uncertainty and more on implementation quality, especially affirming care, streamlined workflows, and reliable linkage to follow-up. Stakeholder and client studies identify stigma, cost, and visit burden as persistent bottlenecks, while pharmacy and peer-navigator models show measurable gains in follow-up completion and program growth. Rural-risk data further support embedding prophylaxis assessment into routine STI/HIV testing touchpoints to improve uptake.

HIV PrEP & PEP in Primary Care

1. A Group Concept Mapping Study of Client and Clinician Perspectives on Scaling up HIV PrEP and doxy-PEP in Primary Care.

2. Client Priorities for Improving PrEP and doxy-PEP Awareness, Uptake, and Persistence in Primary Care.

3. Pharmacy HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis/post-exposure prophylaxis furnishing: The benefits of collaborating with peer navigators.

4. Factors Influencing Oral Pre-, Post-, and Doxycycline Post-Exposure Prophylaxis Uptake Among Substance-Using Men Who Have Sex with Men in the Rural Southern US.

💡 Summary