The epidemic in Philadelphia, as it is across the nation, disproportionately impacts African Americans and Latino/as, those who are poor, men who have sex with men (MSM), injection drug users (IDU), and those who have traditionally been "disenfranchised" and hardest to reach with care and prevention services. As a result, AACO adheres to strategies that both science and history have proven to be most effective in bringing services to those who need it most.

All care services are focused on bringing people living with HIV/AIDS into quality primary medical care and supporting those individuals so they can maintain their care and adherence to complicated medications regimens.

All prevention services are focused on assisting high risk individuals and those living with HIV understand their risk, get tested, learn safer sexual and injection behaviors, and to maintain those safer behaviors for the protection of others and themselves.

Priorities for care and prevention services are determined by community planning bodies - one for care and one for prevention - that take into account where the epidemic is, what services are needed, and the availability of resources.

AACO works to assure that services are provided directly in the neighborhoods that are most impacted, by community-based providers, and by trained, culturally competent indigenous community members themselves.

AACO therefore has contracted with over 90 community-based providers, many of whom are small minority-controlled non-profit organizations, to deliver a vast array of care and prevention services directly in neighborhoods.

Many of these providers, while best positioned to deliver services, are often inexperienced or untrained in fiscal management or delivering scientifically-based prevention and care services. To deal with this shortfall, AACO provides a range of technical assistance to assure that neighborhood-based providers have the tools to provide quality services and meet local and federal reporting requirements. Technical assistance includes training and certification for a variety of front-line workers, fiscal management, evaluation, organizational development, cultural competency, fundraising, and many others.