PrEP Forums Nationwide Mark National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
On National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD), Feb. 7, The Black AIDS Institute partnered with the HIV Prevention Trials Network and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Region IV to help Black Treatment Advocates Networks (BTAN) bring pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) education to Black communities throughout the country.
National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is a community mobilization initiative for HIV testing and treatment designed to increase the awareness of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment among Blacks in the United States and across the African diaspora. The movement has four main objectives within Black communities:
* Education: to distribute information about HIV/AIDS locally;
* Testing: to establish Feb. 7 as an annual day to get an HIV test;
* Involvement: to increase the number of Blacks involved locally;
* Treatment: to make sure that people who are newly testing HIV positive and those coming to terms with their status are aware of treatment services and information.
The goal of focusing on these areas is to help stem the spread of HIV in Black communities.
This year's theme, "What Does PrEP Have to Do With It?" was carried out in PrEP educational forums nationwide. In Atlanta, participants were tested for HIV, watched PrEP videos and took quizzes.
In the Bay Area, Milton Hadden, a Fellow of The Black AIDS Institute's African American HIV University, convened 25 Black church leaders in Oakland and three HIV experts in public health to discuss how the church might improve its response to HIV in California's Alameda County. The county health director, Muntu Davis, was also at the event. Said attendee Jeffrey D. Klausner, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine and public health at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine and Fielding School of Public Health: "I learned a lot about the barriers and facilitators in the church."
In Minneapolis Derek Spencer, executive director of the JACQUES Initiative at the University of Maryland's Institute of Human Virology, spoke to health professionals at the Midwest AIDS Training + Education Center. At the Stairstep Foundation, he spoke to pastors and church members about the stigma surrounding HIV and the Black church.
"I challenge all of our pastors to talk about HIV in their congregations this week," he told church leaders. "If you mention it once, people will notice. If you mention it twice, people will pay attention and say to themselves, 'That's interesting.' If you mention it three times, your church members will prick up their ears, and before long, you may get on a knock on your door, and it will be one of your church members, who will say to you, 'Pastor, can we talk? I am living with HIV,' or 'I have someone in my family with HIV.' You don't have to go outside of your congregation to bring in people with HIV. They are already there in your congregation."
Says facilitator William L. Larson of the conversation with church leaders, "We were only limited by the size of the rooms. There was a great deal of interest in the topic."
Other cities that had BTAN PrEP activities on Feb. 7 include Broward County, Fla., where a press conference was held at the Florida Department of Health. In Jackson, Miss., My Brother's Keeper, BTAN and the Open Arms Healthcare Center hosted a community-engagement cookout with PrEP education and community speakers. In Little Rock, Ark., the EmPowerment Center hosted Science and Treatment Training.
Southern University, in Baton Rouge, La., hosted the 8th Annual Basketball Game and HIV Education Community Event.
Los Angeles' NBHAAD participants experienced "Black Love = Safe Love" in Inglewood.
Gerald Garth is a Los Angeles-based writer, actor and accountant who works for The Black AIDS Institute.