Community Ideas for Improving the Response to the Domestic HIV Epidemic: A Report on a National Dialogue on HIV/AIDS

摘要

At the beginning of his Administration, President Obama instructed the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP), a component of the Domestic Policy Council (DPC), to develop a National HIV/AIDS Strategy and re-focus our response to the HIV epidemic in the United States. The President directed that this strategy be driven by three primary goals: 1. Prevent new HIV infections. 2. Increase access to care and optimize health outcomes. 3. Reduce HIV-related health disparities. From the beginning, ONAP recognized that community involvement was essential in creating a more effective strategy for combating HIV/AIDS in America. To achieve this undertaking, ONAP developed a comprehensive approach for gathering public input and ensuring that ideas from individuals living with HIV, as well as other stakeholders and interested parties, were reflected in the Nations roadmap for moving forward. ONAP conducted 14 community discussions in locations across the United States and its territories and spoke with more than 4,200 people. ONAP also solicited recommendations for the strategy through the White House Web site. Over 1,000 written recommendations for the National HIV/AIDS Strategy were submitted to ONAP from the community discussions or Web-related submissions. This report is a summary of these community recommendations. Recommendations related to prevention were made against a backdrop of growing HIV prevalence in the United States. People commonly suggested that we need a broad-based, public information campaign. Individuals told us that this campaign should be vast in scope and should educate a public that remains highly vulnerable to HIV infection. Participants at the community discussions noted that population-specific interventions are crucial. Moreover, they said that any public action must address the numerous social, economic, and behavioral factors that fuel HIV transmission.