Center on Halsted is a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) community center in Chicago, Illinois.
The United States President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is a United States governmental initiative to address the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and help save the lives of those suffering from the disease. Launched by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2003, as of May 2020, PEPFAR has provided about $90 billion in cumulative funding for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and research since its inception, making it the largest global health program focused on a single disease in history until the COVID-19 pandemic. PEPFAR is implemented by a combination of U.S. government agencies in over 50 countries and overseen by the Global AIDS Coordinator at the United States Department of State. As of 2023, PEPFAR has saved over 25 million lives, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa.
AIDS service organizations are community-based organizations that provide support for people affected by HIV/AIDS. This article focuses on HIV/AIDS service organizations in the United States only. However, it is important to note that similar organizations in other countries, such as Canada, also played significant roles during the HIV/AIDS crisis and share many common experiences and challenges.
A mental health professional is a health care practitioner or social and human services provider who offers services for the purpose of improving an individual's mental health or to treat mental disorders. This broad category was developed as a name for community personnel who worked in the new community mental health agencies begun in the 1970s to assist individuals moving from state hospitals, to prevent admissions, and to provide support in homes, jobs, education, and community. These individuals were the forefront brigade to develop the community programs, which today may be referred to by names such as supported housing, psychiatric rehabilitation, supported or transitional employment, sheltered workshops, supported education, daily living skills, affirmative industries, dual diagnosis treatment, individual and family psychoeducation, adult day care, foster care, family services and mental health counseling.
The Mpowerment Project is a model community building and HIV prevention program designed specifically to address the needs of young adult gay/bisexual men ages 18 – 29. It is the first documented HIV prevention intervention for young gay/bisexual men to succeed in reducing sexual risk behavior. The program has been developed, evaluated, and continually refined by prominent behavioral scientists from the University of California, San Francisco's Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, the largest research center in the world dedicated to social, behavioral, and policy science approaches to HIV.
Eric Goosby is an American public health official, currently serving as Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Global Health Delivery, Diplomacy and Economics, Institute for Global Health Sciences at University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Goosby previously served as the UN Special Envoy on Tuberculosis as well as previously served as the United States Global AIDS Coordinator from 2009 until mid-November 2013. In the role, Goosby directed the U.S. strategy for addressing HIV around the world and led President Obama's implementation of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Goosby was sworn in during June 2009 and resigned in November 2013, taking a position as a professor at UCSF, where he directs the Center for Global Health Delivery and Diplomacy, a collaboration between UCSF and the University of California, Berkeley.
The St. James Infirmary, founded by members of the sex worker activist community in 1999, is a peer-based, full spectrum medical and social service organization serving current and former sex workers of all genders and their families. Located in the Tenderloin district in San Francisco, California, the St. James Infirmary is a 501(c)(3) public charity. Its services are free and confidential. Named after the sex workers' rights activist and founder of COYOTE, Margo St. James, the St. James Infirmary is the first occupational safety and health clinic for sex workers run by sex workers in the United States.
Mazzoni Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit health care provider in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that serves the LGBTQ community.
The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) is Africa's largest mental health support and advocacy group and is involved in counseling, outreach and capacity building work throughout South Africa. Since 1997, SADAG has initiated rural development projects in communities where there are little or no mental health care services available. These programs have been recognized and endorsed by the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) and the World Health Organization (WHO). A study conducted in KwaZulu-Natal province found that 1 in 4 young people had current thoughts of suicide, thus highlighting the importance of youth mental health in rural areas.
Founded in 1999, Alliance India is a non-governmental organisation operating in partnership with civil society, government and communities to support sustained responses to HIV in India that protect rights and improve health. Complementing the Indian national programme, we build capacity, provide technical support and advocate to strengthen the delivery of effective, innovative, community-based HIV programmes to vulnerable populations: sex workers, men who have sex with men (MSM), transgender people, hijras, people who inject drugs (PWID), and people living with HIV.
Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus is a licensed clinical psychologist and professor with the University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. Rotheram is the professor-in-residence in the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She is the Director of the Global Center for Children and Families at UCLA and the former director of the Center for HIV Identification, Prevention, and Treatment Services.
Thomas J. Coates is the Director of the multi-campus University of California Global Health Institute, a UC-wide initiative established to improve health and reduce the burden of disease throughout the world. He is Professor Emeritus at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and Founding Director of the UCLA Center for World Health, a joint initiative of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and UCLA Health, He has conducted extensive research in the realm of HIV and is the Michael and Sue Steinberg Endowed Professor of Global AIDS Research within the Division of Infectious Diseases at UCLA and Distinguished Professor of Medicine. Health-related behavior is of particular interest to Coates. Throughout his career as a health expert, his theory-based research has been focused on interventions aimed at reducing risks and threats to health
The San Francisco model of AIDS care began in 1983 in wards 86 and 5B of San Francisco General Hospital. The focus of this model was not only on the health of each patient with AIDS, but also on the well-being of each person. As AIDS was beginning to be treated as a significant epidemic, San Francisco General Hospital recognized the need to create new standards of care for a disease that had never before been experienced. Compassionate care has now become a priority worldwide and an expected standard in hospitals as there places a greater emphasis on the social, psychological, and economic aspects of treatment in addition to the medicine.
Cynthia Ann Gómez is an American psychologist who works in public health. She is known for her work in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention, health care access and health equity for minority individuals and committees. Likewise, one of her most major accomplishments was being the founding director of the Health Equity Institute at San Francisco State University. She has been a teacher and researcher, as well as a leader in both teaching and governmental positions.
James W. Dilley is the Executive Director of the UCSF Alliance Health Project, a mental health facility. He is a psychiatrist and an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco. He is a pioneer in the field of developing responses to help with the mental health issues surrounding HIV. He has published on the issues of mental and physical health in the homosexual community and surrounding HIV. Dilley and other AHP colleagues developed a counseling approach for HIV risk reduction called Personalized Cognitive Counseling (PCC) which was recognized in 2010 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an effective behavioral intervention. He was the 2016 recipient of the Adolf Meyer Award from the American Psychiatric Association.
Diane Havlir is an American physician who is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of the HIV/AIDS Division at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research considers novel therapeutic strategies to improve the lives of people with HIV and to support public health initiatives in East Africa. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019.
Monica Gandhi is an American physician and professor. She teaches medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and is director of the UCSF Gladstone Center for AIDS Research and the medical director of the San Francisco General Hospital HIV Clinic, Ward 86. Her research considers HIV prevalence in women, as well as HIV treatment and prevention. She has been noted as a critic of some aspects of the COVID-19 lockdowns in the US.
Marguerita Lightfoot is a counseling psychologist known for her research in the field of preventive medicine, especially in regard to HIV prevention and advocacy for homeless youth. She is Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and the Chief of the Division of Prevention Science. She serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Fostering Healthy Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Development among Children and Youth.
Debra A. Murphy is a Professor Emerita at the University of California, Los Angeles in the Department of Psychiatry.
Peter Goldblum is an American psychologist who is Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the LGBTQ+ Area of Emphasis at Palo Alto University (PAU). He founded one of PAU's Gronowski Center's specialty clinics, the Sexual and Gender Identities Clinic (SGIC), and one of PAU's research labs, the Center for LGBTQ Evidence-based Applied Research (CLEAR). In the past 50 years, he has engaged in the development of community-based mental health programs and policies for the LGBTQ+ population in the San Francisco Bay Area.
