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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Joseph J. Amon, PhD, MSPH, HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program, Human Rights Watch, 350 Fifth Ave., 34th Floor, New York, NY 10118-3299, 212-216-1286, amonj@hrw.org

HIV/AIDS programs and policies which fail to incorporate or respect human rights principles can often be critiqued strictly from a public health perspective because they fail to engender trust or empower targeted populations, driving individuals away from critical information and services, and undermining efforts to achieve desired outcomes. However, adding a human rights perspective – examining programs and policies against international human rights norms – helps to clarify obstacles to public health impact and suggests specific policy, legal and programmatic solutions. This analysis can also form the basis for social mobilization campaigns and effective advocacy directed at barriers to public health impact that transcend the health sector. This presentation will discuss the intersection of public health and human rights critiques taking specific examples from harm reduction programs, abstinence-only HIV prevention campaigns, expanded HIV testing programs, and programs addressing sexual violence against women and sexual minorities.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. describe how public health and rights-based critiques of HIV/AIDS programs and policies differ
• 2. present several, diverse examples of rights-based critiques of HIV/AIDS programs and policies
• 3. demonstrate how rights-based approaches identify policy, legal and programmatic solutions and can become the basis for advocacy efforts.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Human Rights

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No