A North Texas health provider wants to expand sexual health services — with the community’s help
KERA | By Kailey Broussard
Published October 16, 2024 at 5:00 AM CDT
Prism Health North Texas has enlisted an 11-member advisory group to inform clinic expansion efforts and outreach to underserved communities.
The Sexual Health Advisory Group (SHAG) will meet monthly for the next two years to discuss community members’ needs and experiences surrounding sexual health services — as well as best strategies for outreach.
Januari Fox, Prism Health North Texas’s director of policy, advocacy and community engagement, said SHAG is geared toward making sometimes uncomfortable conversations about sexual health easier for patients.
“What services do we need to offer? What do our doctors need to know? How do you like to be greeted when you check in at the front desk? Is that working for you?” Fox said. “Taking all of these things into consideration, it’ll help us make Prism Health North Texas a more community-driven organization.”
The advisory group — and expansion plans across the nonprofit’s five clinics that offer sexual health services — are funded by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant to address rising rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Rates have increased by about 2% across diseases over the past five years, according to a CDC report that counted syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia cases in the U.S.
In Texas, rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia are higher than the national average, and the state has one of the highest rates of new HIV infections in the country.
Prism Health North Texas received $500,000 in 2023 through the grant and will receive $200,000 every year through 2028.
In addition to creating the advisory group, the nonprofit is also using funding to cover sexual health test costs for patients who are uninsured or meet other eligibility requirements.
Danielle Rohr, Prism Health North Texas’s director for program evaluation, said Prism Health North Texas has also made investments to make high-resolution anoscopy procedures, which are used primarily to detect cancer in the anus or lower rectum, available to patients.
Rohr said the nonprofit has trained two health care providers on how to provide screenings and is working on infrastructure to provide services in clinics.
Sexual Health Advisory Group members could help Prism Health North Texas strategize on how to reach out to communities about the importance of anoscopy procedures.
“How do we share that information to the community broadly without it seeming offensive or weird or whatever and make people actually want to call and schedule their appointment?” Rohr said. “It’s a procedure that a lot of people may not be familiar with and may not understand and may not know who needs it.”
For the first few meetings, SHAG will focus on the basics of STIs and systemic barriers to health care. The meat of the conversations will kick off in 2025, said Javier Enriquez, Prism Health North Texas policy, advocacy and community engagement coordinator.
“We wanted to make sure that all of our SHAG members were equipped with a baseline of information so they can all feel confident to pitch in,” Enriquez said.
Members of SHAG were picked from a pool of 65 applicants and includes representation from marginalized groups – the majority of members are people of color, and most identify as transgender. Prism Health North Texas also considered representation among Dallas ZIP codes.
“I think folks who are people of color or trans, some of these folks have a background where if they are in some of these spaces, they’re often the only person representing their identity. That’s something we wanted to avoid, too,” Enriquez said. “While we want to have a diverse array of experiences to be heard, we also don’t want to tokenize folks.”