Gender integration in US-based HIV prevention programs for women/girls: Lessons learned from a federally-funded gender integration capacity building assistance project

Globally, women are more likely to become infected with HIV than men. To this end, since the mid-1990s a number of international agreements have called for gender integrated prevention programs. The U.S. explicitly addresses gender issues through its foreign assistance programs, yet such efforts are neither required nor prevalent in domestic prevention efforts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have developed a significant compendium of evidence-based HIV prevention interventions. However, most of these interventions do not seek to transform gender norms and roles, nor do they promote more equitable gender relations. The Office on Women's Health (OWH) of the US Department of Health & Human Services has developed the HIV Prevention Gender Toolkit, which is designed for organizations who are interested in integrating gender issues in HIV prevention programs for women and girls. The Gender Toolkit represents the first national effort to create resources to support gender integration in the US. JSI Research & Training Institute and the National Native American AIDS Prevention Center were funded by OWH to provide capacity building assistance (CBA) to OWH grantees on integrating gender-responsive approaches into their HIV prevention programs based on the strategies and tools that are provided in the Gender Toolkit. This presentation will provide a review of the concepts and CBA that was provided to OWH grantees, including lessons learned from the delivery of CBA, grantees' perspectives based on their efforts to integrate gender into domestic HIV prevention programs, and potential implications for gender-responsive public health policy.