The National AIDS Memorial Grove was conceived by a group of people who had lost loved ones to AIDS. Located in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, this 7-acre wooded area includes the well-known “Circle of Friends,” which are flagstones inscribed with the names of those whose lives have been touched by HIV/AIDS.1
Tennis star Arthur Ashe announces he is HIV-positive.2
The Eighth International Conference on AIDS moves from Boston to Amsterdam because of U.S. travel policy restrictions for HIV-positive individuals.3
Funded through HRSA’s Bureau of Health Professions prior to 1997 and through the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program from 1997 onward.
AIDS CARE TRAINING REACHES COMMUNITIES
In the six years since launching its first AIDS Program, one of HRSA’s top priorities was to take HIV/AIDS service delivery knowledge back into the community. It had been clear, almost since the beginning of the epidemic, that HIV/AIDS required a much larger response than a single program like the Ryan White CARE Act could provide. The engagement of public health departments, community clinics, public hospitals, and the public health community at large was critical for building an effective response to the growing epidemic.
HRSA’s Bureau of Health Professions provided training through the AIDS Education and Training Centers Program early on in the epidemic and continued to do so until 1997, when the program was funded through the CARE Act. (See chart at left.)
In addition to training, publication of journal articles, participation at conferences, and dissemination of lessons learned were critical in fostering engagement with the public health community. Two articles, in particular, stand out when looking back on contributions to the HIV/AIDS care literature in 1992.
- Bowen GS, Marconi K., Kohn S., Bailey S., Goosby E., Shorter S., Niemcryk S.J. First year of AIDS service delivery under Title I of the Ryan White CARE Act. Public Health Reports. 107(5):491-499, 1992.
- Kachur S., Sonnega A., Cintron R., Farup C., Silbersiepe K., Celentano D., Kwait J. An analysis of the Greater Baltimore HIV Services Planning Council. AIDS & Public Policy Journal. 7(4):238-246, 1992.
The authors of these articles are among the pioneers in HRSA’s response to AIDS. Dr. George Stephen Bowen would later become Director of the Bureau of Health Resources Development, which was responsible for administering Title I (Part A), Title II (Part B), and the Special Projects of National Significance (Part F) of the CARE Act in the mid-1990s. Dr. Katherine Marconi was a leader in building data systems that would help measure Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program effectiveness. And Dr. Eric Goosby, now with the Pangea Global AIDS Foundation, would eventually become Director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of HIV/AIDS Policy.
