D.A.P. Deemed FQHC

Despite the name it’s had since being incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1984, Desert AIDS Project in Palm Springs expanded its service purview beyond HIV care when it became a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) “Look-Alike” in April 2012. But that doesn’t mean D.A.P. is any less concerned with HIV/AIDS than it has been… Read more »

PrEP: Preventing HIV infection

You may have seen the odd acronym “PrEP” among the alphabet soup of medical terms so prevalent today. It stands for “pre-exposure prophylaxis” against HIV infection and is a very simple therapy: a daily dose of Truvada, the highly effective antiviral medication used since 2004 to treat patients who are already HIV-positive. Actually, Truvada is… Read more »

Living with HIV

The Coachella Valley has two prominent demographic characteristics: a larger-than-average senior population and one of the highest per capita rates of persons living with HIV/AIDS. You may know one of those people, whether they know their status or not. Nationally, one in five people who have HIV are unaware of it; that rate is likely… Read more »

Client Care Extraordinaire

Many of us remember that chilling day in 1981 when the first diagnosis of AIDS was reported. It wasn’t long before this international epidemic took the world by storm as medical professionals and researchers worked feverishly to determine the cause, treatment and effect. Here in the Coachella Valley, a small group of concerned volunteers joined… Read more »