My last year working at the Foundation for Research on Sexually Transmitted Diseases (FROST'D) in New York City was spent working on a program, financed by the Centers for Disease Control, that targeted men who have sex with men (MSM). While my personal focus in the field of HIV prevention had largely been working with sex workers, particularly street-based sex workers with multiple barriers to HIV prevention, I found the change in focus necessitated by my employer immensely gratifying due to the complexity of prevention barriers affecting this marginalized population.
Considering my own history, this abstract immediately caught my attention.
I find the report distressing but hardly surprising, as the practical basis for Diffusion of Effective Behavioral Interventions, aka DEBIs*, is often not explicitly aligned with the real world work Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) must do in order to gain access to the most vulnerable individuals. I could rant on about this for hours, but suffice to say the folks in the CDC's ivory towers in Atlanta are too out of touch with the very people they need to work with in order to carry-out successful interventions---not to mention the people they are trying to reach via said interventions.
What needs to change? Quite a lot, and I'm afraid the people charged with implementing the changes are too far away, both physically and mentally, and they aren't listening to those standing on the front-lines.
* While looking for a site to link with my mention of DEBIs, I found this, which is a repost of a private message board posting written by yours truly. (I love, love, love Susan!) Note that I stated DEBIs as Demonstrated Effective Behavioral Interventions, which is what I recollect them being called three years ago when I was reporting program statistics to the CDC.
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