The Cost and Intensity of Behavioral Interventions to Promote HIV Treatment for Prevention Among HIV-Positive Men Who Have Sex with Men

Steven A. Safren, Nicholas S. Perry, Aaron J. Blashill, Conall O’Cleirigh, Kenneth H. Mayer

Recently, behavioral prevention interventions for HIV have been criticized as being ineffective, costly, or inefficient. In this commentary, using HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM) as an illustrative high-risk population, we argue that the opposite is true-that behavioral interventions for HIV prevention, if implemented with the populations who need them, are affordable and critical for future prevention efforts. We base this argument on recent evidence showing that (1) adherence to antiretroviral treatment (ART) for prevention purposes is necessary to suppress HIV replication and reduce transmissibility, (2) individuals living with HIV have multiple psychosocial concerns that impact self-care and moderate the potential effectiveness of health behavior interventions, and (3) intensive interventions targeting both concerns together (psychosocial and HIV care) can show clinically significant improvement. We follow by comparing the cost of these types of interventions to the cost of standard clinical treatment for HIV with ART and demonstrate a cost-savings of potential intensive behavioral interventions for, in this case, HIV-positive MSM who have uncontrolled virus. Keeping this evidence in mind, we conclude that individual intervention must remain a mainstay of HIV prevention for certain critical populations.