Hello all! Many of our committees didn’t meet this month given the upcoming holidays. Here’s the latest from those that did.

Nominations Committee

The Planning Council currently needs members from hospital or health care planning agencies, state Medicaid and Part B agencies, Part D grantees, Federally Recognized Indian Tribes, and people co-infected with Hepatitis B or C. The Planning Council is also seeking African American men from the Philadelphia and the PA counties. Anyone interested in applying for the Planning Council can print out an application from our website.

The Nominations Committee will host a social at the office after the Planning Council meeting on February 11th. Refreshments and entertainment will be provided.

RWPC

Antonio, our newest staff member, presented on PrEP. He summarized what the HPG and Planning Council have done about PrEP so far. The HPG and RWPC have heard several presentations on PrEP in the last year. There are still problems with getting PrEP to the people who need it most. For example, many people who need PrEP don’t know it exists. Primary care doctors also need more training about prescribing PrEP. The slides from Antonio’s presentation can be found here.

HPG

Co-Chairs Jen Chapman and Brad Shannon went to the National HIV Prevention Conference from December 6th-9th in Atlanta. PrEP, patient navigation, and transgender people were popular topics at the conference. There was a lot of talk about the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. The Federal Government released a community action plan. The CDC also launched a website about HIV testing  and an online tool that people can use to estimate their HIV risk. Jen’s slides can be found here.

Antonio went back over his PrEP presentation with the HPG.

The January HPG and Planning Council meetings will be combined (on January 14th). A doctor from a large PrEP program in Philadelphia is going to give a presentation. The HPG will continue to work with the RWPC on the Integrated Care and Prevention Plan, which will be submitted next year. At the February HPG meeting, the group will start talking about barriers to PrEP.

Want to get involved? To learn more, follow the links in this post, attend one of the meetings listed on our calendar, or email info@hivphilly.org. If you have questions, you can also call us at 215-574-6760.