President Obama Signs the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009

By Christopher Bates, Director HHS’ Office of HIV/AIDS Policy

President Barack Obama and lawmakers applaud Jeanne White-Ginder, right, mother of Ryan White, during his remarks before signing the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009 in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House. October 30, 2009.

Today President Obama signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. In his remarks at the signing, the President said, “over the past 19 years this legislation has evolved from an emergency response into a comprehensive national program for the care and support of Americans living with HIV/AIDS. It helps communities that are most severely affected by this epidemic and often least served by our health care system, including minority communities, the LGBT community, rural communities, and the homeless. It’s often the only option for the uninsured and the underinsured. And it provides life-saving medical services to more than half a million Americans every year, in every corner of the country.”

Making Choices: Create Once, Repurpose Often (Part III)

By David Galiel, AIDS.gov Advisor

In this new media strategy series, I explore ways to develop an effective new media plan that considers available resources, integrates existing services, and uses the right tools for the job. Part I of this series discussed identifying audiences and needs. Part II discussed using an appropriate technology approach to select your new media tools.

Part III: Create Once, Repurpose Often

New media allows us to repurpose existing content, make it available in different forms, and reach our audiences through multiple channels. We can summarize a webinar as a blog post, make it available in an RSS feed or email feed , cross-post it to our Facebook and MySpace pages, and Tweet about it. The slide presentation can be uploaded to SlideShare . We can record the webinar and make it available as a streaming audio or downloadable audio file, along with a text transcript of the webinar. We can read a blog post about the event aloud and include it in a podcast feed . There is a wealth of opportunities to repurpose content created from a single event, potentially reaching a wider audience than we would through one channel.

New Media Institutes, Usability Testing, A Photo Booth, and More: Preview of AIDS.gov's Activities at the U.S. Conference on AIDS

By Jennie Anderson

What do new media institutes, usability, and a BIG RED photo booth have in common?

They are some of activities we're planning for later this month at the U.S. Conference on AIDS (USCA) . This annual conference, hosted by the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) , will take place October 29-31st in San Francisco and will bring together public health experts, people living with HIV, government employees, activists, and community leaders from across the country (and a few from around the world!). We're so grateful to the organizers of USCA — they've put together a packed agenda for the conference, and we look forward to taking part.

Today is National Latino AIDS Awareness Day

By Daniella Rivera, AIDS.gov Fellow

James Albino, Office of National AIDS Policy

Today is National Latino AIDS Awareness Day (NLAAD) . Earlier this week we shared some of the ways that people are using new media to get the word out about NLAAD. Here's an update on just a few of this week's many NLAAD activities.

The Latino Commission on AIDS (the lead organization for the day) and its partners sponsored a Congressional Briefing yesterday on Capitol Hill that brought together the voices of key leaders who are addressing the disproportionate impact of the epidemic in Hispanic/Latino communities nationwide. The Office of National AIDS Policy was invited to be a part of a wide array of speakers at this session on Capitol Hill. Here’s a short audio clip I recorded, (transcript also available - PDF, 21 KB) in which James Albino, Senior Program Manager, recapped the key messages offered during the briefing by Jeffrey Crowley, Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy.

United We Can Stop HIV and Prevent AIDS, Unidos Podemos Detener el VIH y Prevenir el SIDA

By Deb LeBel

National Latino AIDS Awareness Day (NLAAD) , planned by The Latino Commission on AIDS (LCOA) and its partners , is this Thursday, October 15. This year NLAAD organizers from LCOA, AIDS service organizations, faith communities, health departments and others are integrating a variety of communication tools — both traditional and new media — to most effectively reach their local and national audiences. Some of the tools include:

• PSAs: Soy (I Am) is a national campaign with a series of Spanish-language public service announcements (PSAs) with subtitles in English that feature Latinos living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and Latin America. In their second year of collaboration, Soy partners Kaiser Family Foundation , Univision , and LCOA have created fourteen new PSAs for you to embed in your website, blog, or social network site.