Recommendations to increase testing and identification of HIV-positive individuals through partner counseling and referral services.

6 artner counseling and referral services (PCRS) are one aspect of care available to HIV-positive people and the partners with whom they have sex and/or hare hypodermic needles. The goal of referral (providng the names of these partners) is to notify partners of heir potential exposure to HIV. Notified partners are rged to be tested for HIV: If they test negative they can eceive prevention counseling and, if they test positive, hey can enter into treatment. Partner notification (or contact tracing”), a key aspect of PCRS, can be done by he infected individual; this is known as patient referral, lient referral, or self-referral. When notification is done y a public health professional, it is known as provider eferral. Referral can also be handled jointly by the nfected individual and his or her healthcare provider. The United States Preventive Services Task Force has reviously issued a strong recommendation for HIV creening for all adolescents and adults at increased risk f infection. This includes people who have been exposed o the virus as well as those who receive health care in a igh-prevalence or high-risk clinical setting. (High-prevlence settings are defined by the Centers for Disease ontrol and Prevention [CDC] as those known to have a % or greater prevalence of infection among the patient opulation being served.) Moreover, the CDC has reently recommended expansion of HIV testing at least nce for all adults and adolescents in healthcare settings. he availability of highly active antiretroviral therapy HAART), a potentially effective HIV treatment, makes it ll the more important to identify infected individuals as arly as possible. The accompanying systematic review found sufficient vidence, according to Guide to Community Preventive Serices rules, that provider referral partner notification dentifies a high-prevalence target population for HIV creening. The Task Force on Community Preventive ervices therefore recommends the use of provider-referal partner notification—in which a healthcare provider