PACT project history

The origins and core vision of the PACT program came from community activists. In 1995, PIH was approached to help establish a collaborative project that would train people from inner-city Boston to improve conditions in their communities, which suffer from some of the worst health indicators in the United States. We began our work together by training community members to teach and mobilize their friends and neighbors about prevention and care for HIV and about access to healthcare services.

In 1998, the project aligned itself more closely with the clinical "pillar" of Partners In Health, the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. That was also when the project officially became known as PACT (Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment) and its Health Promotion program was initiated.

Together with PIH, PACT succeeded in creating a highly innovative HIV treatment intervention, modifying the community-based model developed in Haiti to fit a developed-country urban setting. Making full use of Boston’s extensive medical and health resources, the PACT project is designed to ensure that residents of Boston's poor neighborhoods receive adequate HIV-related care and services.

In 2002 PACT enrolled its first eight patients in a program called DOT-Plus, which combines health promotion with directly observed therapy (DOT) of antiretroviral medications. Patients in the program were administered free or very low-cost medications by trained DOT health promoters. That same year, PACT also initiated a program called Fuerza Latina (“Latin Strength”), a comprehensive HIV and substance abuse prevention initiative targeted at Latino injection drug users. The Fuerza Latina curriculum leads its participants through stages of personal recovery, leadership development, and community organizing.

In March 2005, PACT relocated into the heart of the community we serve, opening a new office in Codman Square, Dorchester. From its new headquarters, the program continued to expand its outreach in the Greater Boston area, adding health centers in several communities north of Boston to its growing referral network. By 2006 the program had served more than 215 HIV patients since its launch.