SEATTLE MAY 2012 NEW YORK CITY MAR 2012 PHILADELPHIA MAY 2012 BALTIMORE MAY 2012 SAN FRANCISCO SEP 2011 CHICAGO NOV 2011 DENVER MAY 2012 WASHINGTON DC NOV 2011 LOS ANGELES APR 2012 BIRMINGHAM JAN 2012 ATLANTA MAY 2012 LAS VEGAS APR 2012 DALLAS MAY 2012 HOUSTON MAR 2012 NEW ORLEANS JAN 2012 SAN JUAN MAY 2012 FT. LAUDERDALE FEB 2012 ROAD TO AIDS 2012 September 30, 2011–May 24, 2012 A PROJECT OF FINAL REPORT THIS PROJECT IS SUPPORTED BY A GRANT FROM THE MERCK COMPANY FOUNDATION TABLE OF CONTENTS A Note from Community Education Group .................................................................................................................i A Note from Urban Coalition for HIV/AIDS Prevention Services ....................................................................iii Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................................................1 San Francisco ........................................................................................................................................................................4 Washington, DC .................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Chicago .................................................................................................................................................................................... 9 New Orleans ..........................................................................................................................................................................12 Birmingham ..........................................................................................................................................................................15 Fort Lauderdale ...................................................................................................................................................................17 Houston ..................................................................................................................................................................................19 New York .............................................................................................................................................................................. 22 Los Angeles ........................................................................................................................................................................ 24 Los Vegas..............................................................................................................................................................................26 Denver ................................................................................................................................................................................... 29 Seattle .....................................................................................................................................................................................31 Philadelphia .........................................................................................................................................................................33 Dallas ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 34 Atlanta ...................................................................................................................................................................................37 Baltimore ..............................................................................................................................................................................39 San Juan ................................................................................................................................................................................41 Community Input: Surveys ..........................................................................................................................................44 Post Event Evaluations .................................................................................................................................................. 54 Lessons Learned .................................................................................................................................................................61 A NOTE FROM COMMUNITY EDUCATION GROUP Welcome to the final report on the findings of Road to AIDS 2012 (RTA 2012), a nationwide tour of 17 cities designed to engage communities in conversation about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in America. Through town hall meetings from San Francisco to San Juan, Puerto Rico, communities discussed the impact of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS), while ensuring that their voices were included in the development of a domestic platform for the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012). RTA 2012 was a joint effort between Community Education Group (CEG), the Urban Coalition for HIV/AIDS Prevention Services (UCHAPS) and the International AIDS Society (IAS), which is the convener of AIDS 2012. The tour was funded by a grant from the Merck Company Foundation. It was also made possible thanks to the efforts and contributions of its many partners including the federal government, local health departments, community organizations, healthcare organizations, private industry and people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). The NHAS is the United States’ first comprehensive strategy for dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It calls on the federal government, along with state and local governments, to achieve unprecedented coordination and service integration to accomplish three broad goals: reduce new HIV infections, increase access to care and improve health outcomes for PLWHA, and reduce HIV-related disparities and health inequities. It also represents a unique opportunity to promote accountability, performance and improvements in public health. In light of the Strategy, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched a 12 Cities Project to demonstrate how a broad range of federally supported prevention, care and treatment activities in U.S. cities with the highest burden can work together across multiple organizational and program boundaries to achieve the outcomes of the NHAS. In that same spirit of collaboration, RTA 2012 set out to develop a continuous series of community mobilization events through the 12 cities, culminating into the official community mobilizing activity of AIDS 2012. The initial goals of RTA 2012 were to: elevate HIV/AIDS as a key public health priority in local communities among multiple types of stakeholders, including government, the advocacy community, community based organizations, the faith-based community, healthcare providers, business partners and the media; heighten public awareness in each jurisdiction about the programmatic strategies that are being implemented to integrate and coordinate prevention, care and treatment services; and establish City Platforms across the RTA 2012 cities that will support movement toward the achievement of NHAS objectives. The 12 cities initially identified as having the greatest burden in the United States were San Francisco; Washington, DC; Chicago; Fort Lauderdale/Miami; Houston; New York; Los Angeles; Philadelphia; Dallas; Atlanta; Baltimore, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The cities of New Orleans and Birmingham were added to the RTA 2012 tour because the southern region of the U.S. has a unique epidemic that is influenced by its geographic location, as well as issues of race, class and gender. The cities of Las Vegas, Denver and Seattle were later added to the tour rounding out the 17 cities. i A NOTE FROM COMMUNITY EDUCATION GROUP (CONTINUED) One of the reasons CEG came together with Anna Ford, who was then the director of UCHAPS (Dr. Marsha Martin replaced Anna Ford as director midway through the tour), is because we wanted to find out what people thought about the National HIV/AIDS Strategy in communities outside of Washington. We wanted to ask communities, “How has the NHAS impacted your life particularly leading up to AIDS 2012?” We wanted to give government the opportunity to speak to community, and community the opportunity to speak to government. Both CEG and UCHAPS brought unique assets to this project and were ready to exploit those strengths to ensure maximum participation in RTA 2012. Being a community based AIDS service organization CEG brought the strength of understanding what other locally based providers would want to gain from participating in a ROAD TO AIDS Town Hall event, along with the ability to manage and coordinate a public awareness campaign on a national scale. With that knowledge CEG was expected to create a framework that would guide the town hall discussions through transformative topics such as the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and the Affordable Care Act, as well as unique concerns of importance to the various jurisdictions. As a national advocacy group, UCHAPS with member jurisdictions in 8 of the 15 RTA 2012 cities, was expected to call upon its extensive reach in those cities to raise awareness and support from critical partners including local and state community planning groups, Ryan White Councils and the local health