Welcome to DAP Health: Desert AIDS Project's New Name and Expanded Mission

DAP began offering health equity and inclusion in 1984, a time when HIV was a “gay” mystery illness, and doctors were forbidden from treating people with AIDS.  A group of off-duty medical professionals would meet AIDS patients secretly at night to administer treatments, and this was the beginning of Desert AIDS Project (now DAP Health).

In responding to health disparities caused by LGBTQ stigma, we have learned over decades how destructive it is when any human cannot access medical or behavioral healthcare in time. We also saw how quickly things can improve when someone gets the care they need.

We started by offering healthcare to the partners of our earliest AIDS patients, so that they could maintain their strength while rising to the challenge of caring for their loved one.

We saw the impact this extra care made on our patients and their partners, and the idea grew. Besides HIV and STI care and prevention, we started welcoming adults who don’t have HIV but who need ongoing healthcare with a primary care physician.

Today, DAP Health offers a uniquely sweeping set of services and relationships proven to stabilize lives in times of crisis. Humanitarian, inclusive, courageous, inventive, and conscientious, DAP Health understands that wellness brings hope, and that health equity leads to equality.

You can find out more about the DAP’s rich history here.

Thanks to our history, our team, our status as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) and this community, we have continued to open our doors wider to serve more people.

“COVID shined a spotlight on inequities in healthcare for everyone in our community,” says David Brinkman. “As we face the future head-on, our new name helps show that we embrace our expanding role in addressing growing public health needs in the Coachella Valley.”

Rising numbers of people need medical and mental healthcare during this pandemic, and patient volume has steadily increased at DAP.

We opened one of California’s first COVID Clinics and over 4,000 patients have been seen. These services will continue, and in 2021 DAP is also addressing some of the social determinants of health that are causing negative health outcomes during this pandemic.

Food and housing insecurity, joblessness, isolation, and access to healthcare can have a considerable effect on COVID outcomes, compounded by factors like race, ethnicity, and LGBTQ status. (CDC)

DAP Health joins with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to declare that beating COVID will require solutions that promote health equity.

In 2021, we will double access to specialized doctors and therapists whom patients can access from home, and a social services team to link them to programs and resources.  

This includes one-on-one therapy and support groups focusing on mental health and substance abuse with emphasis on recovery and relapse prevention. Also offered are general wellness initiatives, socialization programs and activities to counter isolation. 

Mobile testing and linkage to ongoing medical care in communities of color will greatly increase this year, and we are supporting programs to train medical clinicians in cultural competence.

And construction will soon begin on 61 affordable housing units on the DAP campus, with 29 units reserved for residents coming out of homelessness.

DAP Health continues to address practical challenges people face accessing healthcare. We are removing barriers by:

• Offering case management (traditionally reserved for our HIV-positive clients) to a broader segment of the community that may currently remain unconnected to care.
• Making available a host of in-home services — a necessity since the beginning of the pandemic — to empower and protect the health of the community at large.
• Expanding mobile clinic services across the Valley to meet the health needs of the Hispanic/Latino and Black communities, and other high-risk, underserved populations.
• Providing smartphones and WiFi access to clients unable to afford them so that telehealth visits can continue and increase.
• Widely Distributing HIV/HEPC self-testing kits.
• Engaging in training programs to better educate healthcare professionals working in communities of color.
• Broadening dedicated women’s healthcare services.
• Relaunching our all-volunteer Buddy Program, which will furnish crucial one-on-one connections to the most isolated in our community.

DAP has the region’s largest team of HIV-specialized doctors with expertise in aging and thriving with HIV, and although the word “AIDS” no longer appears in the DAP Health logo, providing care to people with HIV (PWH), and ending the HIV epidemic, remain core to DAP Health. .

Despite COVID, providing more HIV testing and better treatment for PWH remains essential to ending the HIV pandemic.

We will cut the time between diagnoses of HIV and entry into care for patients in 2021, and will make medication available quicker, a move to prevent people from falling out of care. DAP knows this will also help decrease HIV transmission rates.

DAP Health offers services that PWH need to stay healthy and untransmittable to others. Patients become part of the DAP family beginning with testing, to linkage into care, and then being enrolled in medical and mental healthcare, dentistry, social services, and prescription access. 

DAP has the region’s largest team of HIV-specialized doctors with expertise in aging and thriving with HIV, and although the word “AIDS” no longer appears in the DAP Health logo, providing care to people with HIV (PWH), and ending the HIV epidemic, remain core to DAP Health. .

Despite COVID, providing more HIV testing and better treatment for PWH remains essential to ending the HIV pandemic.

We will cut the time between diagnoses of HIV and entry into care for patients in 2021, and will make medication available quicker, a move to prevent people from falling out of care. DAP knows this will also help decrease HIV transmission rates.

DAP Health offers services that PWH need to stay healthy and untransmittable to others. Patients become part of the DAP family beginning with testing, to linkage into care, and then being enrolled in medical and mental healthcare, dentistry, social services, and prescription access. 

1984 Public agencies and the healthcare system ignores the HIV epidemic in Coachella Valley, and a community of grass-roots volunteers founds DAP. The first office is at 610 S. Belardo Road in Palm Springs. 

1985 FDA approves the first test to detect HIV antibodies in blood, and DAP starts its own HIV/AIDS testing program. 

1988 DAP moves into new offices at 750 S. Vella Road. The project provides health education and prevention programs on AIDS, HIV testing, social services and counseling support services to AIDS victims, their families and friends. 

1989 First Annual Desert AIDS Walk, a 10K held in downtown Palm Springs. Actor Kirk Douglas and wife Anne participated in the walk. Kirk spoke to the crowd before the participants hit the street. Former President Gerald Ford and former first lady Betty Ford attended the post-walk picnic event. 

1991 Desert AIDS Project expands its Vella Road offices and opens a medical clinic, which is staffed, full-time, by physician Bruce Lloyd and nurse practitioner Kathy McCauley, both formerly of the Riverside County Health Department’s clinic in Palm Springs. A full-time nurse, receptionist, lab technician and clinic manager were also hired. 

1994: Humanitarian Steve Chase’s death from AIDS inspires the namesake event gala held yearly, inspiring others to join the cause of health equity. DAP opens a satellite office in Indio to provide HIV and Hep C screening, early intervention and case management services for underserved Hispanic/Latino communities. 

1995 The very first Revivals store was opened in a back corner of the Desert AIDS Project office on Vella Road. 

1998 DAP purchases a 44,000 square-foot campus in Palm Springs to meet the increasing demand for services and larger medical clinic. 

2001 The Morris & Linda Linsky Food Depot opens on the DAP campus to fight food insecurity with healthy food distribution, grocery vouchers, and dietary guidance. 

2007 Vista Sunrise Apartments opens, providing permanent supportive housing on the DAP campus. 

2008 DAP opens the first adult, HIV-specialty dental clinic in Riverside County, addressing a serious need for people with HIV (PWH) needing dental care. 

2010 2.7 million people worldwide become newly infected with HIV. DAP begins the decade focused on ending the epidemic. 

2012 The Annette Bloch Cancer Center opens to specialize in HIV-related cancer research, screenings, treatment and prevention. 

2014 DAP launches Get Tested Coachella Valley, the nation’s first non-profit-led, region-wide HIV testing, prevention, education and linkage to care initiative. Over 81,000 Coachella Valley residents were tested for HIV. 

2015 DAP opens THE DOCK, a walk-in clinic providing HIV and STI testing and treatment with access to PrEP and PEP, and linkage to care. 

2016 DAP opens the Hepatitis Center of Excellence to deliver comprehensive, state-of-the-art expertise to manage, support and cure those afflicted with Hepatitis. 

2017 DAP opens Transgender Health Program, offering gender-affirming services and care. 

2018 DAP commits to doubling its operating capacity for providing patient-centered primary, HIV specialty, dental and behavioral healthcare to our community. 

2019 Desert AIDS Project marks 35 years of caring for our community. 

2020 The Blue and Green Clinics grand opening welcomes more new patients needing services. That same month, DAP opens the COVID Clinic to provide screening, treatment and vaccines, helping to conserve room at area hospitals throughout the pandemic. Timothy Ray Brown, the first person to be cured of HIV, dies from non-HIV related issues.  

2021 DAP adopts the name DAP Health, a move to reaffirm its promise to the HIV community and its history, while committing to the entire public health of the Coachella Valley in the 21^st century.