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Winter 2011

E-Newsletter: Volume 4, No. 2

Seminar addresses implications of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy

In July 2010, the first-ever National HIV/AIDS Strategy for the United States was released by The White House through the Office of National AIDS Policy. The document provides "a concise plan [to] identify a set of priorities and strategic action steps tied to measurable outcomes.” The Strategy lays out four principal aims: 1) reduce the number of people who become infected with HIV; 2) increase access to care and improved health outcomes of people living with HIV; 3) reduce HIV-related health disparities; and 4) achieve a more coordinated national response to the HIV epidemic.

Accompanying the Strategy is a Federal Implementation Plan that outlines the specific steps to be taken by various Federal agencies to support the high-level priorities outlined in the Strategy. Both the Strategy and the Federal Implementation Plan recognize that extensive research will be needed to advance HIV prevention, treatment, and care, noting for instance that “[t]he Strategy cannot succeed without continued and sustained progress in biomedical and behavioral research” and that “[c]urrent approaches to preventing HIV must be coupled with research on new and innovative prevention methods that can have a long-term impact.”

On November 5, 2010, the HIV Center's Global Community Core sponsored a seminar on “The National HIV/AIDS Strategy: Its development, implementation, and implications for HIV research and services.” The GCC seminar was chaired by Core Director Robert H. Remien, Ph.D., and featured three invited speakers: Chris Collins, M.P.P.,Vice President and Director of Public Policy, The Foundation for AIDS Research
(amfAR); Nathan Schaefer, M.S.S.A., Director of Public Policy, Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC); and Stephen F. Morin, Ph.D., Director of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) and the AIDS Policy Research Center and Chief of the Division of Prevention Science in Medicine, University of California, San Francisco.

Mr. Schaefer began with an overview of the grassroots movement that pushed for a National Strategy, and then reviewed the steps that led to the development of the NHAS. Mr. Collins then presented highlights of the strategy, particularly with regard to health disparities and highly impacted populations such as young MSM of color. He also discussed ongoing implementation processes at such federal agencies as NIH, CDC, and HRSA. Dr. Morin then broadly outlined the implications for the NHAS on HIV behavioral research. Beginning with the major goals set out by the NHAS, he reviewed what evidence is available from research about how to advance each goal. Dr. Morin also delineated key challenges for moving forward the research agenda.

To access podcasts of the presentations and for key NHAS-related websites, please click on the links to the right.