Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #117049

Timothy J. Frasca, Population and Family Health, Columbia University, 722 West 168 Street, New York, NY 10032, (212) 305 39 27, tf2139@columbia.edu

The deepening HIV/AIDS epidemic has led government policy-makers, donors and multilateral agencies to seek to “scale up” current national efforts. One key strategy recommendation is to combine reproductive health services with HIV/AIDS prevention, usually by incorporating the latter into the former. At first glance, this approach seems entirely reasonable, but the two worlds are not so easily melded. Homosexual HIV transmission still predominates in Latin America, and in many countries attempts to address the steady increase in heterosexual transmission is not benefitting from the previous lessons learned. Writings on reproductive health in Latin America generally do not take men into account in addressing HIV/AIDS except as vectors of transmission or when they are subsumed into broader categories such as “youth.” Efforts to provide better access to antiretroviral drugs to people with HIV have obscured the underlying, unresolved issues of sexuality education and sexual health services, areas where conservative forces are eager to do battle. AIDS work from reproductive health services is likely to remain trapped within female enclaves where attempts to educate or “empower” women will run up against the structural obstacles that accentuate female vulnerability. Gay-oriented prevention also needs to redefine strategies and objectives in the post-crisis, Internet age. Both camps have valuable lessons that are not being shared. Dialogue is needed between gay prevention and reproductive health to question whether current efforts will reduce risk for both populations.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the conceptual gap between reproductive health- and gay-oriented approaches to HIV/AIDS prevention.
• Know what each side could offer the other to improve efficacy of AIDS interventions.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Latin American

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation