P1-S6.13 A new approach to encourage HIV testing in high-risk populations at the Clinique l'Actuel
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background In Québec it is estimated that 1/3 of those infected do not know their HIV status, that HIV is diagnosed late in 41%, and that sex during primary infection is an important driver of the epidemic. In late 2008 Clinique l'Actuel launched a testing campaign tailored to MSM in Montréal using free rapid tests with the goal of increasing early diagnosis of HIV. In this study we evaluated the feasibility of and potential impact of facilitated access to rapid HIV-testing. Methods Rapid HIV-tests offered through dedicated clinics were widely advertised in Montréal's MSM community. Patients calling for testing deemed at high risk were given appointments within 2 weeks, where they filled out a short questionnaire, received medical consultation routine STI screening, pre- and post-test counselling and their HIV test results within the hour. Ongoing support, care, and treatment were offered to those testing positive. Results Over 9 months 2500 received HIV testing. 98% were men and median age was 34 (IQR=26–41). Of these patients, 42% were new to the clinic, 10% had never been tested previously, and 29% had not been tested within the past 2 years. 93% reported they were more likely to undergo repeat screening because of rapid testing. 2% were found to be HIV positive. Of these, 60% cited the rapid test as the primary reason for undergoing screening. 33% of those testing positive were in primary infection, as compared to 18% the previous year at Clinique l'Actuel (p=0.062) and 11% in Québec. Conclusion Facilitated access to rapid HIV testing can increase uptake in high-risk patients. This may increase early HIV diagnosis and intervention to decrease transmission.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.075 | 0.011 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".