Federal Grant Award Summary

Public Health Foundation Enterprises, Inc. (doing business as Heluna Health) received a $588,669 Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) on April 15, 2026, with an ultimate completion date of January 31, 2031. The award funds the Street Prep intervention, which delivers evidence-based HIV prevention services directly to people who use drugs and experience homelessness in San Francisco. The project will recruit 150 high-risk participants through respondent-driven sampling leveraging an existing cohort study and social networks within the drug-using population, then randomize them to either standard clinic linkages or the Street Prep intervention arm.

The Street Prep intervention provides comprehensive, low-barrier services including access to a mobile health clinic, tailored navigation addressing both HIV prevention and substance use needs, and transportation to low-barrier drop-in clinics for ongoing healthcare. The project will employ a Type 2 hybrid effectiveness-implementation randomized trial design to measure the intervention's impact on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake and persistence among a population experiencing significant structural barriers to HIV prevention services. This research addresses a critical public health gap, as new HIV diagnoses among people who inject drugs in San Francisco increased 34 percent from 2019 to 2021, while PrEP utilization in this population remains extremely low at 1.2 percent annually.