Washington Blade - August 10, 2001
Eric Erickson
"This meeting is so important because it really provides an opportunity for all the individuals involved in the prevention field to come together and learn from one another," said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the National Center for HIV, STD & TB Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
The CDC is one of 20 sponsors of the four-day conference, which runs Aug. 12-15 this year. The gathering takes place every other year, opposite the International HIV/AIDS Meeting. While many conferences address several issues surrounding the AIDS and HIV epidemic, next week's conference specifically addresses prevention efforts by government agencies and AIDS service organizations.
The majority of conference participants will be from the United States, but there will be international representation as well, allowing AIDS educators to learn about prevention methods being used in other countries.
This information can be extremely useful to AIDS education organizations trying to reach out to several different demographic groups. Earlier this year, the CDC reported increases in the number of new AIDS cases among young, black gay men. Since then, many AIDS organizations have striven to better educate men who have sex with other men living in urban areas.
"We'll discuss programs that have worked successfully for various populations," said Bob Ford, volunteer services manager with AID Atlanta, one of the largest AIDS groups in that city. "How do we take a program that has worked for gay white men and effectively design it to work for women of Hispanic origin?"
One way the conference will help inform AIDS educators on how to spread prevention messages is through presentations by other AIDS educators themselves. Anthony McWilliams, the prevention programs manager for AID Atlanta, will make a presentation about a program he conducts concerning homophobia in the black community.
"It really gives an opportunity to bring together gay and bisexual men with heterosexuals to talk about homophobia ... and the different sexualities to address how these issues actually relate to the transmission of HIV, especially in the African American community," said McWilliams.
While prevention has always been foremost in the fight against AIDS, Ford said the way the message of prevention is taught has changed since the first AIDS cases were diagnosed 20 years ago.
"The same old stories that we've always heard about how to prevent HIV are exactly the same stories that we're still using today," said Ford. "[But] in the early '80s, the initial campaigns were very sex-negative. Today, campaigns are much more sex-positive, offering people as many choices as possible, trying to get people to make changes that are healthy and viable and reduce the risk of HIV transmission."
For McWilliams and Ford, the conference will not only allow them to talk to other AIDS educators from around the country about prevention methods, but also about political issues specific to the fight against AIDS.
"There are regional political issues," said Ford. "What's accepted here in the South may or may not be accepted in the North or Midwest. So we're able to look at the different regional issues that exist as well."
Since the first reported cases of AIDS in 1981, 400,000 people have died from AIDS and more than 1 million more have been infected in the United States alone.
While HIV and AIDS remain as serious as 20 years ago, advances in treatment have led to increased apathy around the disease.
Conference organizers said they also hope the meeting strengthens the national network of governmental, community and academic partners in HIV prevention, which can in turn promote advances in vaccine development.t
INFO: HIV Prevention Conference: Aug. 12-15 Hyatt Regency Atlanta Hotel 265 Peachtree St. NE Atlanta, GA 30303 www.2001hivprevconf.org AID Atlanta 1438 W. Peachtree St. NW, suite 100 Atlanta, GA 30309 404-870-7700 TTY/Voice 404-870-7773 Georgia AIDS & STD InfoLine: statewide: 1-800-551-2728 local: 404-870-7775
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