by Richard C. Johnson
June 11, 2001

Best Practices in HIV/AIDS Prevention Click the cover to download the complete .pdf publication.

As the Conference of Mayors convenes in Detroit this month for its 69th Annual Meeting, the nation is observing the 20th year of AIDS, a milestone that should remind us of the terrible scourge that the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is visiting upon this country and the world. In a commentary to mark the occasion Dr. Helene D. Gayle, Director of the National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), notes that in the 20 years since the first cases of AIDS were reported more than 21 million people worldwide have died, 400,000 in the United States.

CDC's history with this epidemic began, as Dr. Gayle notes, in 1981 when it dispatched epidemiologists to investigate reports of a previously unrecognized illness among gay men in Los Angeles and New York City. Within 18 months the virus that causes AIDS was discovered, and shortly thereafter CDC began working with all major sectors of society — state and local public health partners, the media, business, religious, and community-based organizations — to develop and implement prevention interventions.

The Conference of Mayors is one of CDC's partners, and our Cooperative Agreement is now in its 18th year. Since it began working for HIV prevention, USCM has funded 225 locally-based HIV/AIDS prevention projects totaling over $11.1 million. The Conference has published scores of studies and reports on HIV prevention, and just this month issued a Best Practices volume devoted to HIV prevention and outreach strategies that is now being distributed to Mayors and public health officials across the country. Another round of USCM prevention grants is now underway, the bulk of which will be awarded to organizations working with African American men who have sex with men, among whom there is an extraordinarily high level of infection that CDC has termed "alarming."

At the Annual Meeting in Detroit this month a Resolution is on the table, sponsored by Mayors Willie Brown of San Francisco, Thomas M. Menino of Boston, Paul Schell of Seattle, and Richard M. Daley of Chicago, commending the Administration for its commitment to combat the global pandemic of HIV/AIDS and urging the allocation of additional resources to this effort both at home and abroad.