African Americans and HIV/AIDS: Understanding and Addressing the Epidemic

Among U. S. racial and ethnic minority populations, African American communities are the most disproportionately impacted and affected by HIV/AIDS (CDC, 2009; CDC, 2008). The chapters in this volume seek to explore factors that contribute to this disparity as well as methods for intervening and positively impacting the e- demic in the U. S. The book is divided into two sections. The first section includes chapters that explore specific contextual and structural factors related to HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention in African Americans. The second section is composed of chapters that address the latest in intervention strategies, including best-evidence and promising-evidence based behavioral interventions, program evaluation, cost effectiveness analyses and HIV testing and counseling. As background for the book, the Introduction provides a summary of the context and importance of other infectious disease rates, (i. e., sexually transmitted diseases STDs] and tubercu- sis), to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in African Americans and a brief introductory discussion on the major contextual factors related to the acquisition and transmission of STDs/HIV. Contextual Chapters Johnson & Dean author the first chapter in this section, which discusses the history and epidemiology of HIV/AIDS among African Americans. Specifically, this ch- ter provides a definition for and description of the US surveillance systems used to track HIV/AIDS and presents data on HIV or AIDS cases diagnosed between 2002 and 2006 and reported to CDC as of June 30, 2007.

Donna Hubbard McCree, PhD, MPH, RPh is Team Leader/Behavioral Scientist, Intervention Research Team, Prevention Research Branch, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention (NCHSTP), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. McCree has over twenty-seven years of experience in Public Health and Pharmacy. She completed the Doctor of Philosophy with Honors (1997) and Master of Public Health (1987) degrees at The Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland in Health Policy and Management with a specialty in Social and Behavioral Sciences. She also completed a post-doctoral fellowship through the former Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine (ATPM) with a specialty in Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) prevention. Additionally, she holds a Bachelor of Science degree, summa cum laude in Pharmacy from Howard University (1982) and is a registered pharmacist in the states of Maryland and Connecticut, and the District of Columbia. She has held numerous positions in the fields of Public Health and Pharmacy including academia, bioavailability research, professional association management, and retail and hospital pharmacy practice. She was on the faculty of the former College of Pharmacy at Howard University for over 7 years where she served as Acting Chair of the Department of Pharmacy Administration. Her training and expertise are in developing and conducting STD/HIV behavioral interventions. Her work has resulted in over 80 peer-reviewed publications and presentations at both international and national scientific meetings. Additionally, she is the recipient of numerous awards and was recently awarded the 2009 Minority Health Mentor/Champion of Excellence Award from the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention for outstanding commitment and achievement as a mentor for the ORISE Community of Color Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Kenneth T. Jones, MSW, is a behavioral scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP). He has served as the project coordinator of the Social Networks Demonstration Project and the technical lead for d-up: Defend Yourself! (d-up!)--a cultually adapted evidence- and network-based intervention for young men who have sex with men (MSM). Also, he has served as the project officer for a randomized controlled trial of a community-level intervention adapted for young Black MSM. Most recently, he lead an initiative to package intervention and training materials for d-up!, which is being disseminated nationwide to community-based organizations (CBOs) and health departments through the CDC’s Diffusion of Evidence-Based Interventions (DEBI) initiative. He has served on several planning committees and workgroups at the CDC, including the Workgroup to address HIV/AIDS and STDs among African Americans and the DHAP Executive Committee on HIV/AIDS among MSMs. Prior to joining the CDC, Jones served as the Director of Research for the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, where he also participated in two liaison panels with the Institute of Medicine. He also co-authored and edited several research and policy reports including Say It Loud: I’m Black and I’m Proud, one of the largest multi-city studies of Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) men and women attending Black Gay Pride celebrations in the United States, and Leaving Our Children Behind: Welfare Reform and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community, which examines the impact of 1996 legislation on a segment of Americans largely excluded from the debate. He has served as a research and curriculum consultant with various AIDS service organizations including Gay Men of African Descent and People of Color in Crisis. He is a founding member of the Black Gay Research Group, a multidisciplinary team of Black gay researchers brought together to address the dearth of research on Black MSM, and the former board president of In the Life Atlanta, a non-profit community-based organization whose mission is to increase positive visibility of LGBT individuals of African Descent. Jones received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of Michigana and a Masters of Science in Social Work degree from Columbia University in the City of New York. He has recently returned back to Columbia University where he is receiving doctoral training in social work and serving as a Pre-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Social Intervention Group, a multidisciplinary intervention development and prevention organization at the Columbia University School of Social Work. Jones’s recent manuscripts have appeared in the American Journal of Public Health, AIDS & Behavior, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases Ann O’Leary, PhD is a Senior Behavioral Scientist in the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her training included a summa cum laude undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania; a Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University, supported by a National Science Foundation fellowship; and one year of postdoctoral training in Health Psychology at the University of California at San Francisco. She served on the faculty of the Psychology Department at Rutgers University from 1986 to 1999. She has conducted research on HIV prevention for the past 27 years, and has also published many articles on other aspects of Health Psychology. Dr. O’Leary has published more than 150 scientific articles and chapters, and has edited or co-edited three books, Women at Risk: Issues in the Prevention of AIDS, Women and AIDS: Coping and Care, Beyond Condoms: Alternative Approaches to HIV Prevention, and From Child Sexual Abuse to Adult Sexual Risk: Trauma, Revictimization and Intervention. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and won the inaugural ＂Distinguished Leader＂ award from the APA’s Committee on Psychology and AIDS. She serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, and is a frequent consultant to NIH and other scientific organizations.