Phoenix's 90-90-90 Plan: Is the City on Track to Meet its Goals?

The overall goal of the research study was to determine if the City of Phoenix is going to attain their 90-90-90 targets for 2020 as part of the Fast-Track Cities initiative. The Fast-Track Cities plan includes that by 2020, 90% of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 90% of people who know their HIV-positive status are on treatments, and 90% of people on treatment have suppressed viral loads. In order to achieve the Fast-Track Cities Initiative goals, the number of people who are aware of their status will need to increase by an additional 5%. The number of people living with HIV who are on HIV medications will need to increase 39%, and the number of people virally suppressed will need to increase 40% (City of Phoenix, 2016). This study was executed by first comparing HIV/AIDS epidemiology reports from the years of 2015-2017 to see the incidence trends. The city of Phoenix was also compared to the second largest city in Arizona, Tucson, to see if Phoenix was making more advances towards ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic in 2030. Next, interviews were conducted with members of the Ad-Hoc committee to gain their opinion on whether Phoenix is going to meet their 90-90-90 goals for the upcoming year. It was concluded that the City of Phoenix is making great progress, however, is not going to achieve their goals by 2020. The Ad-Hoc committee still is aiming to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030 and have implemented various projects such as the rapid-start protocol and the HIV home test kit initiative to meet this goal. Future improvements for the Fast-Track cities initiative include obtaining more accurate data and improving funding for the HIV stigma focus group as well as recruiting more political leaders.