Community Input on Updating National HIV/AIDS Strategy and National Viral Hepatitis Action Plan to Begin at U.S. Conference on AIDS

The current National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) and National Viral Hepatitis Action Plan (NVHAP) both expire in 2020. At the U.S. Conference on AIDS this week, the HHS Office of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Policy (OHAIDP) will begin gathering stakeholder feedback to inform the updates to both plans.

These strategies are important national frameworks designed to:

• facilitate collaboration across sectors and engage diverse stakeholders,
• reduce new infections and improve health outcomes for those living with HIV and/or viral hepatitis, and
• put the United States on a path to elimination of HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C.

Scientific advances, the evolution of the health care system, emerging strategies for effective prevention and improved health outcomes, and ongoing and emerging challenges such as the opioid crisis have created imperatives and opportunities to renew, revise, and extend these plans which are designed to move us, as a nation together, toward the goal of ending both diseases as public health threats in the United States.

Community input again will be integral to the development of both plans, as it was in the development of the current and prior versions of both plans. Everyone has a role to play in our national fights against HIV and viral hepatitis. Active engagement by and of a broad mix of stakeholders from various sectors, both public and private, in communities and states across the nation have been great strengths in making the NHAS and the NVHAP both national plans, not merely federal plans.

OHAIDP staff looks forward to hearing from HIV and viral hepatitis community leaders, frontline workers, individuals living with and at risk for infection, and other members of the community from across the nation during this session. It will take place on Friday, September 7, 2018 between 4:15 and 6:15 PM at the conference, which is being held in Orlando, Florida.

OHAIDP, part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, coordinates the ongoing implementation and monitoring of both the NHAS and NVHAP; facilitates the two federal interagency workgroups comprised of representatives from the many federal departments, agencies, and offices with responsibilities to oversee execution of each plan; and communicates about local, state, and national progress in achieving each plan's goals.

Additional opportunities for stakeholder and community input on the updates to both plans will be announced in the coming months. Follow HIV.gov and the HHS hepatitis blog for details.