Issues: Reaching Native American adolescents with HIV prevention education in the United States is a daunting and difficult task given the cultural and bureaucratic barriers in place. In an effort to understand and overcome some of these barriers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Adolescent and School Health convened Native American tribal leaders and State HIV Education Coordinators from the 14 U.S. states with the highest Native American populations for a three day summit in Tempe, Arizona, October 23-25, 1999.
Description: This presentation will describe how the summit afforded participants from Federal, State, Tribal, and community levels to interact and foster a greater understanding of the systems in which they operate. Participants collaborated to create action plans to address the HIV prevention activities to be implemented in each state including: forming state level American Indian AIDS Coalitions; involving Native American youth in State level meetings; creating resource directories; re-establishing an American Indian seat on the state HIV Commission; enhancing surveillance activities to over sample Native American youth in surveys; and holding a meeting between the State Department of Education and the Inter-Tribal Council.
Conclusions: By providing a forum for different bureaucracies to collaborate around a public health threat, both understanding and action can be generated. A six month follow-up on the activities outlined in the action plans will be provided during the presentation.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to: 1. Describe the health risk behaviors among Native Amercian adolescents. 2. Discuss the collaborative efforts among Federal, state, tribal, and local levels to prevent HIV infection among Native American adolescents
Keywords: Adolescent Health, American Indians
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.