We’re back from the United States Conference on AIDS (USCA) that was held last week in Orlando, Florida. Sponsored by the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC), USCA is the largest HIV/AIDS conference in the country and brings together leaders from across the U.S. to address issues that face us all. From the opening plenary, focused on youth, to HHS Secretary Sebelius’s plenary, to the closing session about the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS), we were inspired and encouraged by the passion and dedication of case workers, nurses, advocates, health educators, community organizers, policy makers, and many others.

We once again launched our Facing AIDS Initiative and were thrilled that hundreds of people came by our booth to share why they were Facing AIDS (and supporting the NHAS). Many conference participants shared their feedback about the AIDS.gov website and potential mobile opportunities through usability testing. We also witnessed an increase in new media at this year’s conference. It was great to see all the tweets, Facebook updates, and blog posts coming from the conference (check out the #USCA2010 hashtag to read the conversation). We co-sponsored a tweetup with NMAC and the CDC National Prevention Information Network (CDC NPIN), and a workshop about how to bring Facing AIDS to your community. Our workshop was one of several new media workshops, an encouraging and exciting development from last year.

On the last day of the conference, Dr. Howard Koh, Assistant Secretary for Health, sat down with NMAC’s Executive Director, Paul Kawata, and asked him about the key take-away messages from this year’s conference. Watch and listen to what Paul had to say.

We would like to thank Paul and the rest of the NMAC team for organizing a fantastic conference, and we look forward to USCA 2011 in Chicago!