Priorities in the implementation of partner services for HIV/STIs in high-income nations: a narrative review of evidence and recommendations.

ABSTRACT

Partner notification (PN) remains a crucial prevention tool to reduce sexually transmitted infection (STI) transmission and prevent STI-related morbidity. Although there have been a variety of different approaches taken to facilitate the notification, testing and management of sexual contacts of STIs and HIV, there is an increasing acknowledgement that these interventions are unscalable and have relatively little impact on disease transmission. At the same time, an expanding body of evidence supports a shift in the emphasis of STI outreach-related work from an exclusive focus on PN to an approach that incorporates epidemiologic data collection, case management, and PN, an approach that is sometimes called partner services (PS). In this review, we appraise the current evidence base for different PN interventions for STIs in high-income nations, make recommendations for best practices, present a schema for how public health programs might prioritise PS for different programs, and identify priority research questions related to PN.