Nearly 30 years ago, as a first-year MPH student, I worked as a research assistant on an HIV prevention study. Condoms and clean syringes were the only resources to prevent new infections, besides advice about safer sex and testing to “know your status.”  

Now, PrEP, PEP, and HIV treatments are available that keep people well and can protect their partners from acquiring HIV. This is a huge win, yet few people who could benefit from PrEP are using it.

This is one reason I'm grateful to work at the LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence with researchers like Drs. Doug Krakower, Julia Marcus, and Vanessa McMahan, who help make PrEP accessible.

More than 40 years after the first documented case of what we now call AIDS, we hold space for several realities as we observe the 37th World AIDS Day on December 1. There are victories in prevention and treatment. There is loss and anger. And there is a community that survived and was strengthened by its collective action. This action includes ensuring young people can access accurate, complete, and age-appropriate information about relationships, sexuality, and health. It includes addressing conditions that fuel the HIV epidemic, like LGBTQ stigma, racism, and poverty. And it includes removing barriers to HIV prevention resources and treatment.

I am proud to join this community of researchers who are working to make HIV history and advance health equity for LGBTQ people. I hope you will partner with us.

We partnered with BAGLY Inc.—a youth-led, adult-supported program for LGBTQ+ youth—to create a podcast about youth and HIV.

Listen to BAGLY Community Health Educator Cyan Jean interview Dr. Krakower.

Vox interviewed Dr. Krakower about at-home STI testing. “Inconvenience,” said Krakower, “whether it’s cost, or travel, or parking, or taking off work, or other competing demands—is probably a big factor in why people aren’t necessarily engaged in…sexual health care that they might otherwise benefit from.”

In a video interview, Dr. Charlton spoke about Transgender Day of Remembrance and how it relates to public health. "The day offers an opportunity to shed light on transphobia, which we know is linked to health, beginning with things like unemployment, poverty, and homelessness," she said.