IAC 2010 Session: HIV/AIDS in the Information Age -- How Digital Media Can Fight the Epidemic

Tonight, as part of the 2010 International AIDS Conference, we attended a session on new media, HIV/AIDS in the Information Age: How Digital Media Can Fight the Epidemic. Moderated by Scott Evertz, Senior Vice President of Gibraltar AssociatesExit Disclaimer, the session highlighted public and private examples of using digital media to communicate public health messaging. We heard from Tina Hoff from the Kaiser Family FoundationExit Disclaimer and Jason Rzepka from MTVExit Disclaimer. Tina and Jason spoke about the GYT campaign and how they've used video, social media, and online marketing to reach their audiences. Jenny Taussig from Emory UniversityExit Disclaimer and Jackie Kahn from Gibraltar presented AIDSVuExit Disclaimer,an online tool that uses mapping to share information about the epidemic and provides information on local HIV testing centers. They've also incorporated social networking, encouraging people to "make the pledge" to take an HIV test.

We also saw some of our other colleagues at this session, including Dr. Cheryl Smith, Associate Medical Director for Clinical Care and Services at the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) AIDS Institute. Back in April, we blogged about the AIDS Institute's development of a widget that educates healthcare providers about acute HIV infection, Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), and hepatitis B&C guidelines.

Currently, the NYSDOH AIDS Institute is planning a statewide new media conference this fall, and HIV.gov is working with Dr. Smith and her team to provide support for that event. Working with a lot of community input, they have also developed a new media plan to expand their communications efforts.

We were also pleased to see colleagues from NIMH Jirair Ratevosian.

We always appreciate the opportunity to connect with our colleagues around the power of new media. We've been talking to plenty of people at IAC about this very subject. Stay tuned for videos and more posts from IAC about how people are using--or would like to be using--new media in response to HIV.