A new state-wide program seeks to raise awareness and build HIV Friendly communities.
Created by the HIV Prevention and Care Project at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Public Health, HIV Friendly serves as an educational campaign designed to increase awreness and to share resources regarding HIV. To register for an HIV Friendly presentation, visit the HIV Friendly registration page.
Participants who attend an HIV Friendly presentation will learn the basics of HIV, identify the ways in which stigma and discrimination negatively impact people living with HIV, and learn how to create inclusive, HIV Friendly communities for all Pennsylvanians.
There’s so much chaos and confusion in our government today, and the queer community is once again being otherized and demonized. Marking the queer community as evil makes it much easier to dismiss our self-evident rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Moreover, proposed cuts to Medicaid will leave millions of Americans without health insurance. According to a recent study by the Williams Institute at the School of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, LGBTQ adults are almost twice as likely to be on Medicaid due to disproportionately higher rates of disability and poverty among queer people. These proposed cuts will hurt our community, rendering LGBTQ folks more vulnerable to health problems and preventable diseases, among them HIV. This puts a lot of pressure on HIV service providers to step up and take care of people that the government won’t.
POZ speaks with David Munar, president and CEO of Equitas Health, one of the largest LGBTQ and HIV service providers in the country, and Mardrequs Harris, deputy director for the Southern AIDS Coalition, for their perspective and insight.
Every year, GLAAD–the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation–releases a report with the Gilead COMPASS Initiative detailing how Americans’ attitudes and awareness of HIV and HIV stigma have changed.
According to the 2023 report, 86% of Americans believe HIV stigma still exists. However, acceptance appears to be heading in the wrong direction as intolerance towards certain people living with HIV is worsening.
Roughly 41% of Americans said they would feel uncomfortable interacting with a barber or hair stylist living with HIV, up from 37% in 2022. Moreover, a significant portion of individuals said they would feel uncomfortable interacting with a teacher (33%) and co-worker (32%) who are HIV positive, an increase from 29% in 2022.
“HIV Is Not a Crime Awareness Day” was created in 2022 by The Sero Project in collaboration with The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS FoundationExit Disclaimer and other grassroots organizers, bringing together communities, people with HIV, governments and other partners to stand in unity against the harm caused by laws that use a person’s HIV status in criminal prosecution. Today, February 28, was chosen to bridge Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and several other HIV awareness days.
Modernizing these laws is an essential element in ending the HIV epidemic. The National HIV/AIDS Strategy (2022–2025) recommends policies and priorities that can help end the HIV epidemic in the United States. Achieving the goals of this national strategy requires addressing stigma as well as structural barriers to HIV prevention and care. A key part of this effort is examining how laws and policies can inhibit positive change and exacerbate harm and the national strategy encourages reform of state HIV criminalization laws.
All state laws and practices should be informed by science, and in the case of HIV criminalization laws, most are not. 1 In addition, the implementation of HIV criminalization laws was not associated with reduced HIV incidence. Modernizing outdated state laws and practices is necessary.
As the International AIDS Conference gets underway in Brisbane, Australia next week, new data published by UNAIDS offers a glimpse at the current state of the decades-long battle against the epidemic.
Anthony “Tony” Silvestre, whose work with the LGBT community was far ahead of its time and made the pioneering Pitt Men’s Study possible, died Sept. 1, 2022 at 75.
Dr. Silvestre on the cover of Pittsburgh’s Out Magazine in May 1984
[…] His international advocacy and public health work began at Penn State (1971-76), continued with several Philadelphia organizations (1976-83) and brought him to Pitt in early 1984 until his retirement in 2018.
In 1976, he was the founding chairman of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Council on Sexual Minorities, likely the first such state organization in the country. He was U.S. liaison to the World Health Organization (1990-93) and a subject matter expert on HIV for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2002.
Through the years, he served on many expert and advisory panels for the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Allegheny County Department of Health on HIV, alcohol and substance use among gender and sexual minorities, community marginalization and health education and outreach.
But he is perhaps best known in Pittsburgh for his role in forming and running the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force (now Allies for Health and Wellbeing) in its early years. In the process, he supported more than a dozen other state and community groups promoting LGBTQIA-related and HIV-related health messaging for at-risk communities.
In conjunction with his research and teaching in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, he founded the Pennsylvania Prevention Project (now the HIV Prevention and Care Project) there in 1993 to advance comprehensive HIV planning with impacted communities. He also helped create and direct the School of Public Health’s Center for LGBT Research, and was honored by Pitt with the Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award.
He published more than 45 peer-reviewed articles, proceedings and book chapters, and created many state and federal professional reports and presentations as well, much of which can be found at Dickinson College.
According to a 2020 CDC report, out of more than 30,000 new cases of HIV infection in the United States, Black and Latinx populations bear the brunt of being most at risk, accounting for two-thirds (20,000) of the new infections. The reason (the CDC also reports) is due to institutionalized health disparities among those groups. In other words, Black and Latinx people face higher levels of discrimination when seeking health care.
To help address the issue, the HIV Prevention and Care Project at the University of Pittsburgh, in partnership with the Pennsylvania Expanded HIV Testing Initiative at Penn State University created a state-wide program that allows residents of Pennsylvania to obtain a free HIV self-test kit through the mail.
The free test kits use an oral swab and you get results in 20 minutes
Knowing your HIV status is the first step in preventing the spread of the virus. People who test positive can obtain treatment that keeps the virus in check, and therefore makes it next to impossible to spread to others.
To obtain a free HIV self-test kit, go to www.getmyHIVtest.com. Taking care of your health is part of taking care of your community.
To find out more about the free HIV test kit program, and find other HIV/STI testing resources, you can go to the HIV Prevention and Care Project Website at https://hivhealthpa.com/resources/. If you still have questions, send an email to info@getmyHIVtest.com.
Monday, February 7, marks National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD) 2022. By numerous measures, Black Americans are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic. NBHAAD highlights related challenges while raising awareness about prevention, testing, treatment and more.
“This #NBHAAD we are focused on equity,” tweeted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of HIV Prevention, adding: “We must end unequal access to #HIV prevention & care, & address root causes that contribute to disparities in HIV such as poverty, stigma, systemic racism, & unequal access to healthcare & education.”
In 2020, African Americans represented 12% of the U.S. population age 13 and older but accounted for 43% of new HIV diagnoses, according to AIDSVu.org, which analyzes HIV data and creates related infographics and interactive maps.
Disproportionate HIV rates are more pronounced in the South, where in 2020, Black Americans accounted for 52% of new HIV diagnoses but made up only 19% of the population in that region.
Are you a resident of Pennsylvania who has been impacted by HIV/AIDS? Consider volunteering for the HIV Planning Group (HPG)! The HPG contributes to the development of the HIV Prevention and Care Plan for the State Department of Health. The Plan implements ongoing activities to reduce HIV and improve the quality of life of people living with HIV.
You can apply to the HPG at https://tinyurl.com/ApplyHPG . Applications will be accepted until December 10th, 2021.
Tell Me About It: HIV Conversations in the Community is a six-part podcast series of honest conversations, sharing accurate and trustworthy information about HIV and sexual and reproductive health in a friendly and open way.
It’s a personal, engaging and honest look at what it really means to live with HIV today, and how that’s changed significantly over the years. Each episode shares developments in prevention and treatment that allow people living with HIV to live long and healthy lives free of fear, and shatters some of the most damaging myths about HIV and its impact on sex, life expectancy, starting a family, staying well, mental health and public attitudes.
It was inspired by the conversations that people living with HIV often find themselves having with those unaware of how HIV has changed in recent years: How did you get it? Aren’t you just a drain on NHS resources? Can I catch it off you? Will you die young?
Hosted by writer, researcher, international performance poet and TEDx speaker Bakita Kasadha, each episode is a conversation between people sharing their experiences of HIV. Most pair a person who is living with HIV and another person who does not have the virus.
