The New York City HIV epidemic among persons who inject drugs (PWID) was the first such epidemic, having started in the mid-1970s, and it rapidly became the world’s largest HIV epidemic among PWID with an estimated hundred thousand HIV infected PWID. After an intense and prolonged political battle, evidence-based prevention programs were implemented beginning in the 1990s. These programs have been extremely effective with annual HIV incidence falling from 4/100 person-years to 4/10,000 person-years, a reduction of 99.9%.
In this talk, Don Des Jarlais, PhD, will present the research documenting this successful effort and agent-based modeling will be used to explain the synergistic effectiveness of combined prevention. In an era in which public health is being repeatedly challenged, it is critical for workers in public health to be aware of and understand how public health programs can be spectacularly effective. This success occurred because of coordinated efforts by activists, public health officials, researchers and the PWID themselves.
About the Speaker: Don Des Jarlais, PhD, is Professor Emeritus at NYU School of Global Public Health and Associate Director, Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Social-behavioral Theory Core, at CDUHR (Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research). For over 40 years, he has been conducting HIV/AIDS research among persons who inject drugs (PWID). He is PI of the “Risk Factors” study (R01DA003574), which was instrumental in tracking the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City. This study has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse since 1983 and is the longest continuously funded study on HIV/AIDS in persons who use drugs. He has conducted HIV/AIDS research nationally and internationally (in over 20 different countries). He has served as a consultant on these issues to the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and served as a Commissioner on the U.S. National Commission on AIDS. Dr. Des Jarlais has published articles on this phase of the epidemic in The Lancet, JAMA, NEJM, Science, and Nature.
In-person attendance is restricted to NYU students, faculty and staff. Online option is available.