White House’s Harold Phillips Discusses World AIDS Day & the National HIV/AIDS Strategy

Harold Phillips, Director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP), recently spoke with HIV.gov about the 2021 World AIDS Day and release of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS).

Harold discussed the process of drafting NHAS and provided an overview of the Strategy. Watch the conversation here.Exit Disclaimer

He shared the Administration’s “whole-of-society” approach to updating NHAS: “…public health plays a really key and important role, but we know how important social determinants of health are. We also know how important partnerships and collaborations with community, faith-based, private sector partners are in this effort. And this plan includes strategies and approaches that can be used by those entities as well.”

Harold also reviewed modifications added to NHAS, including:

• Increased focus on substance use disorders.
• Community and clinical behavioral health models.
• Harm reduction approaches that intersect with STIs, viral hepatitis, and HIV.
• A greater emphasis on strategies for people aging with HIV.

He also spoke about how the Administration plans to implement the Strategy: “We’ll be looking at the issue of HIV criminalization and how to help states and localities address those laws and policies that really get in the way and create discriminatory actions, as well as stigmatizing people living with HIV.”

Please follow the HIV.gov blog for more conversations with Harold Phillips. Read more about the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.