The majority of these organizations are healthcare-based, providing assistance with testing, treatment, preventative medicines like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), needle and syringe exchanges[1] and more.
Another prominent type of AIDS service organization is education-based, working to raise awareness and public understanding of topics like the transmission of HIV, safe sex, treatment resources, as well as eliminating rampant misconceptions about HIV/AIDS.
[6] These organizations were created to serve LGBTQ people's specific healthcare concerns [7] as well as counteract the impact of social determinants, stigma, and bias.
Community-based AIDS organizations also worked collaboratively with widespread activist efforts to demand federal and social support, recognition, and equality.
[13] Medical services are the priority of most of these organizations, due to factors which prevent many HIV/AIDS patients from receiving adequate care from mainstream healthcare providers.
The lack of knowledge about AIDS and the resulting panic and misinformation was the motivating force behind many community service organizations[18] who worked to provide education and dispel myths about the disease.
[23] HIV/AIDS "plagues the world's most vulnerable people"[24] and they are highly dependent on service organizations due to marginalization, stigma, and fear of social and legal retribution, both currently but especially during the height of the AIDS crisis.
[5] The AIDS crisis was shadowed by constant politicization which magnified the struggles of HIV/AIDS patients, as well as heavily hindered research and the search for treatment and/or a cure.
Many AIDS organizations faced pushback from local communities as fear of GRID or the gay cancer was rampant and coupled with widespread political, legal, and social discrimination and homophobia.