Living With HIV Video: A Way to Educate Patients and Provide Support

By Deborah Parham Hopson, PhD, MSPH, RN, RADM, USPHS, Associate Administrator for HIV/AIDS, HIV/AIDS Bureau (HAB), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)

Dr. Deborah Parham Hopson, HRSA

The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program is the largest Federal program devoted to a single disease. Every year more than half a million people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States receive treatment. That is the foundation from which our Program is built. The involvement of the HIV/AIDS community continues to be central to our success over the last twenty-plus years of our Program’s history.

As HRSA’s HIV/AIDS Bureau (HAB) staff began working on our web pages to chronicle the history of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, we knew the story of the individuals that we serve had to be told. There is, of course, no one better to speak about living with HIV or to illustrate the diversity of our Program and the resilience of the individuals we serve than the people themselves.

As such, we created a multimedia video entitled “Living With HIV”. In it the individuals served through our Program discuss their experiences in their own words. The video features people from communities across the country talking about living with HIV disease, its associated stigma, and in many ways the extended life expectancy made possible because of antiretroviral medications.

We know in public health that people are more apt to react to prevention and outreach messaging when they can see themselves and the roles they play. The combination of photography, videography, and voiceover to create a truly multimedia product seemed the perfect avenue to achieve this and, of course, the perfect way to hear from each other.

Mobile Health 2011

By BJ Fogg , Executive Director, and Tanna Drapkin, Managing Director, Mobile Health 2011

On May 4 and 5, over 400 people will gather at Stanford University to hear 45 experts share what really works in creating solutions to improve health behavior using mobile technology.

Hosted by Stanford University and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mobile Health 2011 highlights real solutions for real people – practical, proven solutions. In fact, “What Really Works” is our official theme.

This is not a conference about speculation or ideas that live only in slides. That’s not helpful. This year we show what’s really working in many facets of mobile health, from early stage design to testing, from distribution to business models. And for the first time ever we’ll have a session on hacking for health (how people have used existing technologies to create quick health interventions), led by Google’s Chief Health Strategist, Dr. Roni Zeiger.

For two action-packed days, industry leaders, up-and-coming entrepreneurs, medical visionaries, and hard-working public servants will share their successes. We’ll learn from those with creative, cutting-edge approaches and from those who are working successfully within the confines of governmental security and privacy laws.

Our program features short talks, fast-paced panels, and long breaks for quality conversations. That means attendees hear from all 45 experts and get to talk with them directly. Some of the most inspiring and exciting moments of the conference happen when attendees connect. Relationships blossom, collaborations ensue, and partnerships form to continue to the critical work of providing innovative and positive health impact through the use of mobile technologies.

Youth, Mobile, and Health at Sex::Tech 2011

By Mindy Nichamin, AIDS.gov New Media Coordinator

Earlier this month, I attended Sex::Tech 2011 in San Francisco, the fourth annual conference on technology, youth, and sexual health. At the conference, I heard from a range of experts - sexual health educators, researchers, technology developers, parents, and of course, youth and young adults. During her welcome presentation on Day 1, Sex::Tech founder Deb Levine emphasized that when it comes to reaching young people with sexual health information, there are four key points to consider:

• Optimize search - young people need the right answers to be accessible
• Think push, don't pull - deliver messages where youth already are and when they want it
• Talk to, not at, youth - they're smart - deliver and engage in meaningful (and even humorous) conversations
• Keep your head in the (computer) cloud - we have to be ubiquitous and "transform sex-ed from boring to brand"

These points echo what we heard from others presenters at Sex::Tech and what AIDS service providers have told us before - that youth want to access health information quickly and easily, especially when it comes to HIV. This could be anything from learning what HIV is, to answering a question about how it's transmitted, to finding an HIV testing site nearby. And youth can (and do!) do this with cell phones. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project , 75% of teens have a mobile phone , 54% of teens send texts every day , and even 84% of teens sleep with their phones on or next to their bed . If we start to think about youth as consumers who are seeking out the product they want, we have to reach the medium where they are, and this is increasingly becoming mobile.

Highlights from the White House Meeting for National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

By Jennie Anderson, AIDS.gov Communications Director

Last month I attended a White House meeting for National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (March 11). This meeting brought together leaders from across the country and focused on where the response is today when it comes to HIV among women and girls in the U.S. After the event I spoke with some of the panelists and the following video provides a few highlights from my conversations.

The meeting covered a range of topics from HIV prevention to research to policy. After Jeffrey S. Crowley (Office of National AIDS Policy) opened the event, Congresswoman Donna Christensen (U.S. Virgin Islands) talked about "What Can YOU Do: Take Action" and among other topics discussed the need for community designed and driven interventions. Next up Gina Brown (Office of AIDS Research, National Institutes of Health) provided an epidemiological overview of HIV and discussed what makes women biologically, anatomically, and behaviorally susceptible to HIV, along with some highlights of the iPrEX and Caprisa trials.

Then there were the following three panel sessions with Q&A: 

1. Taking Action Against HIV/AIDS: Effective Strategies for Prevention. Moderator: Janet Cleveland (Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention); Panelists: A. Toni Young (Community Education Group), Cristina Pena (Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation), Barbara Joseph (Positive Efforts, Inc.)
   
2. Getting the Help You Need: Access to Care. Moderator: Frances Ashe‐Goins (Office of Women’s Health, HHS); Panelists: Mardge Cohen (Rush University), Heather Hauck (Maryland Department of Health and Mental, Hygiene), Hadiyah Charles (Suffolk University)
3. Social Marketing and Messaging Techniques; Moderator: Mark Ishaug (AIDS United); Panelists: Regan Hofmann (POZ Magazine), Susannah Fox (Pew Research Center), Cheryl Smith (AIDS Institute, New York State Department of Health)

The event concluded with closing remarks by Tina Tchen (Office of the First Lady).

Again, we encourage you to check out our video with a few brief interviews with some of the speakers. Interested in learning more about the event? Watch the complete White House video .

Highlights from SXSWi

By Jeremy Vanderlan, AIDS.gov Technical Deputy

The 2011 South by Southwest Interactive festival last month brought almost 19,000 attendees to Austin, Texas from all over the globe, a 40% increase over last year. The additional numbers were noticeable, right from the start. Sessions filled up quickly, escalators jammed more frequently, and the conference locales spread out from the Austin Convention Center to numerous hotels. Nevertheless, there were many highlights and some excellent topics that we plan to focus on as a technical team in the next year.

Among them:

• Gaming is emerging as a dominant component of online applications. Millions of people use Foursquare, SCVNGR , and social games such as Farmville on Facebook every day. This tidal wave of users tuning into games says a lot about what people expect from online content – engagement, entertainment, social collaboration and even a challenge or two. At AIDS.gov, gaming is an aspect that we are paying a lot of attention to, including emerging games that deal specifically with HIV/AIDS.

• Health and behavior change are converging in interesting ways. With mobile devices capable of delivering real-time notifications, monitoring activity, and serving as input and recording devices for adherence, behavior change through a combination of mobile intervention, good design, and compelling content is a viable strategy. Doing it well takes a lot of hard work and thought, as we learned from bedsider.org’s presentation.

• Location will continue to merge with mobile. During the conference, we learned that over 40% of searches on Google Maps come via mobile devices. Expect that number to surpass 50% this year alone as smartphones replace older phones without geolocation capabilities. The combination of location, mobile, and health services with the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Service Locator have proven to be the right combination, as use of the application continues to grow.

These lessons and others we learned throughout the conference will continue to inform and shape our communications and technical strategy over the next year. Do you see these same trends shaping your response to HIV/AIDS?