The science of differentiated service delivery: Where we are and where we’re going
AIDS 2022 satellite, 1 August 2022
Over the past decade, research on the benefits of differentiated service delivery (DSD) for HIV treatment has proliferated. Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) endorses four DSD HIV treatment models for people established on antiretroviral therapy (ART) and countries have adopted and expanded DSD implementation. During COVID-19, ART programmes were resilient, leveraging existing DSD systems to achieve scale and increase access by expanding who was eligible, extending antiretroviral therapy refills and intensifying the scale-up of community-based service delivery. Since 2020, IAS – the International AIDS Society – has convened the Global DSD Research Collaborative to work collectively and efficiently to fill evidence gaps around HIV service delivery.
In this satellite, this network of researchers summarized the state of the evidence for DSD for HIV treatment, including evidence gaps and key science highlights from the AIDS 2022 pre-conference DSD for HIV in 2022. This was followed by a presentation on how best to answer the outstanding questions focusing on research methodologies appropriate in the DSD context and the role of implementation science versus traditional randomized control trials. Finally, aspirations for the future of the research space around HIV service delivery were shared.
