APA member Gail Wyatt, PhD, represented APA in a congressional briefing hosted by the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD) and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Women’s Health.  The event marked National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and was moderated by actress Rosie Perez, who serves on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.  Participants represented academic, governmental, faith, and grassroots perspectives and addressed a number of topics, including:

• the disproportionate occurrence of HIV/AIDS among young black women; 

• the role of violence in the transmission of sexually transmitted infections; and 

• the need to involve men in prevention and outreach.

During her presentation, Dr. Gail Wyatt stressed a number of issues, including the importance of:

• screening and outreach among those unlikely to seek help; 

• increasing culturally competent outreach, including accurate language and dialect translations; and 

• maximizing mental and reproductive services among those that receive HIV/AIDS services.

All panelists advocated for increased federal funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and outreach services.