Experimenting in the Social Media Lab at the CDC HIV Prevention Conference

By Josie Halpern-Finnerty

Last week we shared updates from the 2009 CDC HIV Prevention Conference. While at the conference, we had the opportunity to co-host a Social Media Lab with our CDC colleagues. The Lab was open throughout the conference, and participants were invited to come, sit down in front of a computer, and talk one-on-one or in small groups about using social media in response to HIV. Over 125 conference participants from community-based organizations, government agencies, national policy organizations, and academic research institutions sought out the Lab.

National HIV Prevention Conference Delivers Call to Action

By Carl W. Dieffenbach, Ph.D., Director of NIAID’s Division of AIDS

I just returned from the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta where a sense of excitement and renewed enthusiasm for fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic were buoyed by the new opportunities that the Obama administration brings. Conversely, there was also an underlying current of anxiety about how our country’s economic situation is affecting HIV prevention services. First, let’s start with the positive.

CDC's 2009 HIV Prevention Conference: “Innovation and Action to End the Epidemic”

By Michele Clark

The 2009 National HIV Prevention Conference is reaching over 3,500 of our colleagues in Atlanta this week. Thanks to conference organizers, this year’s highlights are shared to those unable to attend via Twitter: CDC NPIN , AIDS.gov , and others are tweeting with the hashtag #NHPC09 . CDC also provides conference participants with text message updates , and videotaped many of the presentations to broaden reach (CDC NPIN should have these posted around September 7th).

Miguel Gomez, AIDS.gov Director, presents at NHPC09

This morning, AIDS.gov Director Miguel Gomez presented on the plenary panel, “Advances in HIV Prevention Science and Technology.” The AIDS.gov presentation focused on how the HIV community can adopt new media tools to further their work. Miguel said, “we have a responsibility to learn about new media—to learn what clients are doing online, what new media is, and how to fit it into our overall HIV prevention planning.”

Testing HIV Drugs as Prevention

By Carl W. Dieffenbach, Ph.D., Director of NIAID Division of AIDS

Dr. Carl Dieffenbach, PhD

Last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that the number of annual new HIV infections in the United States is actually 40% higher than previously estimated. This means that more than 56,000 Americans are infected with HIV every year despite public education efforts on how to avoid getting infected. Addressing the global HIV/AIDS pandemic is critical, but it’s clear that we need to re-examine our approaches and figure out additional ways to control and curtail the epidemic here in the United States.

At the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, we stand at the forefront of the nation’s HIV prevention research efforts. One of our goals is to develop new scientific strategies to prevent HIV transmission. We've had our share of successes and disappointments, like all areas of science, but we remain optimistic and are committed to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

"Participation Powers Prevention": Highlights from CDC's 3rd National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media

By Jennie Anderson

Last week Miguel Gomez and I joined 1,000 other public health, social marketing, new media, health education, and health communications leaders at the CDC's 3rd annual National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media in Atlanta. We enjoyed having this opportunity to learn from colleagues (new and old), and present on some of our own new media lessons learned, as we did in past years attending this conference. I presented on a panel with some of our CDC colleagues about user-generated content , highlighting some of our experiences from World AIDS Day and National HIV Testing Day, and Miguel gave a presentation about our AIDS.gov new media strategy .