Medical-Legal Partnerships: a promising approach for addressing health-harming legal needs among people with HIV

Julia Jaén; Anne Frankel; Ashley French; Robin Davison; Miguel Munoz-Laboy; Omar Martinez

doi:10.3389/fsoc.2024.1422783

Medical-Legal Partnerships: a promising approach for addressing health-harming legal needs among people with HIV

Front Sociol. 2024 Jul 9:9:1422783. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2024.1422783. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Julia Jaén¹, Anne Frankel¹, Ashley French², Robin Davison², Miguel Munoz-Laboy³, Omar Martinez²

Affiliations

¹ Social and Behavioral Sciences, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
² College of Medicine, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, United States.
³ School of Social Work, Stony Brook University, New York, NY, United States.

Abstract

Introduction: People with HIV (PWH), particularly those at the intersection of sexual and gender identities, face enduring obstacles to accessing HIV care, including structural stigma, structural racism and discrimination, housing instability, and limited access to health insurance. To address these challenges, Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) in HIV care offer an innovative approach that integrates medical and legal services. By targeting health-harming legal needs (HHLN), MLPs aim to enhance the HIV care continuum outcomes for PWH.

Methods: This study examines the benefits and challenges of MLPs within organizations serving PWH through the social-ecological model. MLP providers (n=111) identified organizational-level challenges such as funding limitations, resource integration issues, and staffing constraints.

Results: MLPs demonstrated numerous benefits, including patient impact and benefits, comprehensive service provision, enhanced staff support and capacity, and potential for policy influence.

Discussion: These results underscore the feasibility of MLPs while offering valuable insights into their efficacy and challenges, guiding the implementation of MLPs to address health-harming legal needs, including discrimination, and thereby improving HIV care outcomes.

Keywords: HIV care; Medical-Legal Partnerships; health-harming legal needs; social-ecological model; structural racism and discrimination.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The original research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant 1R21MH115820-01.