Fragile X Clinics
Fragile X clinics provide comprehensive care for children and adults with the genetic disorder. They offer developmental assessments and specialized care to supplement primary medical care.
Child Trends conducted interviews at Title X-funded clinics to learn more about social barriers to family planning services. Clinic staff described how they respond to these challenges to ensure that clients can access the clinical services they need.
STI & HIV Testing
STIs can lead to serious health complications, including HIV infection. STIs like chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis are easily treated with antibiotics. Human papilloma virus (HPV) can be prevented with the HPV vaccine.
Maricopa County has a publicly funded STD clinic that screens patients for chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhea using a simple mouth or vaginal swab test that can be done in-clinic. The clinic also offers traditional HIV counseling and testing (C – T) for patients who choose to receive it.
Incentives for STI testing have shown promise as an approach to increasing STI screening among high-risk populations who remain untested through conventional strategies. However, further research is needed to understand optimal conditions and specific types of individuals who might respond to incentives. This includes understanding how incentives might work through their effect on price and present-biased preferences. Incentives may also increase STI testing through improved linkage to care and follow-up services. New York State public health law related to STI testing, reporting and confidentiality is continually evolving to keep pace with the epidemic and clinical practice.
Same Day PrEP
One x clinic offers same-day PrEP through its partnership with a walk-in HIV/STI testing center colocated in the facility. Clients are referred to the program if they test negative on a rapid HIV test and if they meet other eligibility criteria. The program recommends that clients take a double dose of PrEP (two pills) between 2 and 24 hours before engaging in sex for the highest level of protection. Clients are also advised to test for hepatitis C and to continue with daily dosing of PrEP if they wish to remain protected.
Another tele-PrEP provider offers same-day PrEP via three community partners that it has established partnerships with in California. All three of these partner community-based organizations provide asynchronous video visits and use systems that are already in place to help clients navigate insurance enrollment. These programs also accept private insurance and, with the exception of a single private company that only takes Medicaid clients in four states, all of these tele-PrEP providers offer assistance for uninsured individuals including leveraging 340B savings and pharmaceutical industry support for medication.
Birth Control
In some communities, especially in rural areas and religiously conservative settings, obtaining birth control isn’t always easy. Clinic staff describe how adolescents worry about their parents seeing them at the clinic or that their medical records will be shared with family members when they pick up prescriptions from local pharmacies.
The majority of Title X clinics offer clinical sexual and reproductive health services for free or low-cost to all clients regardless of their ability to pay, insurance status, age or immigration and citizenship status. Use the map below to find a clinic near you that offers these essential clinical services.
Over 19 million women in the United States live in contraceptive deserts, counties where they lack reasonable access to a health center that offers the full range of birth control methods. Learn more about the barriers to access, and strategies that providers are using to address them, in this brief. From providing onsite OCs to implementing more patient-centered approaches to care, the brief describes a variety of ways that Title X clinics are removing barriers to family planning care.