Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 31, 2006|Volume 34, Number 24

Conference will focus on
'Women, Power and HIV/AIDS'

The staggering rise in HIV/AIDS among women and girls in every region of the world is the focus of a conference being sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 6, at the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale, 155 Temple St.

Part of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH) at the School of Medicine, CIRA seeks to promote discussion and further research about the ways that gender inequality manifests itself in contemporary society and is, in turn, associated with HIV in women.

The conference -- titled "Women, Power and HIV/AIDS" -- will focus on the gendered aspects of large-scale social disruptions, as well as the gendered dimensions of drug use, with a focus on crack cocaine. It will also address some approaches to HIV prevention that involve women's control over protective methods, such as microbicides and the female condom, and discuss how to include men in struggles for gender equality.

Women comprise almost half of all adults living with HIV today, and in the last two years the proportion of women and girls living with HIV has increased in every region of the world, especially in Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. In sub-Saharan Africa, women comprise nearly 60% of adults living with HIV.

"Effective HIV prevention for women requires understanding how women's risk for HIV/AIDS is rooted in social inequality and power differences between the sexes," say the conference organizers. "The pursuit of HIV prevention for women is deeply embedded in the struggle for gender equality."

Conference topics include "Social Upheaval, Gender and HIV Risk," "Sex, Crack and Women," "Women-Controlled Methods," and "In Pursuit of Gender Equality: The Place of Men."

Featured speakers will be Dr. Michael Merson, director of CIRA and the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health in EPH; Karina Danvers of the School of Nursing, director of the Connecticut AIDS Education Training Center; Kathleen Sikkema, associate professor in EPH; and Laurie Sylla, research projects director of the Yale AIDS Program.

Other speakers are from the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa; The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the Institute for Community Research; Columbia University; The Johns Hopkins University; SUNY Upstate Medical University; Instituto Promundo in Brazil; Real Men, Hunter College Center for Community and Urban Health; the Center for AIDS Intervention Research at the Medical College of Wisconsin; and the Global Campaign for Microbicides.

Registration for the conference is free, but recommended. For further information and to register, visit http://cira.med.yale.edu/lpe/index.html.

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