Community service organizations that focus on sexual health such as the Prevention Resource Network in Asbury Park are facing an uncertain future after President Donald Trump released his fiscal year 2026 budget, which includes billions of dollars in cuts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute reported that the budget, which was released May 2, “completely ignores HIV prevention at the CDC, which includes surveillance, testing, and PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) programs.”
Carl Schmid, the institute’s executive director, issued a statement following the budget’s release: “We have already seen a dismantling of many domestic HIV programs with staff cuts, grant terminations, and offices shut down and today’s budget confirms the dangerous direction we are headed in… We look forward to explaining to the Congress the critical federal role in addressing infectious diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis, and the serious implications and consequences to the health of our country if these programs are not adequately supported.”
PRN, which serves Monmouth and northern Ocean counties, could be affected by these cuts, but the impact they might have is not yet clear.
“So in our case, so many of our programs are still stable at the moment, but we really don’t know what the future will bring to us,” said Sal Susino, who is the manager of special initiatives at PRN.
PRN, which is a program of the Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey and has been providing HIV services since the early 1990s, performs several thousand HIV tests each year and has one of the largest PrEP programs in the state. PRN also performs testing for other sexually transmitted infections, or STIs, provides harm-reduction services for those with substance use disorders, and does community outreach and education.
Funding for programs such as HIV services is funneled from the federal government to the state health departments, and it is then disseminated to community service organizations such as PRN. New Jersey does provide some state money for HIV prevention; not every state does.
“All of those things combined are what come out of those prevention dollars that come down from the state, so we don’t know, I don’t believe anyone knows, what and how these cuts are going to affect any of us,” Susino said.
He added that the work community service organizations do is pretty important and that services such as HIV testing and enrolling people in PrEP are what lower the community viral load.
“I would just like the community to be aware of the importance of the work that goes on and the work that has happened over the past 25 years. We’re certainly in a different place than we were 40 years ago” in terms of HIV, Susino said.
