*In September 2010, NWAC was established as an independent non-profit entity. Read the full press release.*
The National Women and AIDS Collective (NWAC) is the first and only national policy network of organizations led by women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, and a key voice of the national women and AIDS movement. NWAC was spearheaded in 2005 by Ms. Foundation Women and AIDS grantees at a Ms. Foundation national policy gathering and came about after nearly a decade of Ms. Foundation investment in connecting and building the power of women-led, community-based HIV groups nationwide. Grantees created NWAC to advocate for changes to federal HIV/AIDS policies that jeopardize their ability to serve women at local levels and to improve the entire country’s ability to address the unique and unmet needs of women living with and at risk of HIV/AIDS.
Today, NWAC plays a critical role in key policy debates at the federal level—from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the White House—and brings the voices and expertise of women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS to key policymaking decisions, from the reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act to broader health care reform.
NWAC is led by a Leadership Team made up of Ms. Foundation current and former grantees and until 2010 was housed at the Ms. Foundation. In September 2010 NWAC established itself as a independant non-profit entity. (Read the full press release.)
Women’s Data, Women’s Lives
NWAC’s primary policy-change goal is to persuade the CDC to collect more accurate data about how and why women acquire HIV. As it stands today, the CDC’s annual survey of new HIV cases across the U.S. fails to take into account women’s unique experiences and as such, results in the unfair allocation of funds for treatment, prevention and care. NWAC is advocating for key changes that will help ensure women, girls and their communities get the support they need to prevent HIV acquisition and live longer, healthier lives.
The current data-collection methodology used by the CDC is based on a decades-old understanding of the epidemic—in fact, it’s barely changed since the early 1980s, and NWAC faults the CDC system for lack of early detection and prevention, fueling the increase of HIV/AIDS cases among women ever since. Most women acquire HIV differently than men—they get it through heterosexual contact, and are often unable to confirm whether or not their partner has participated in any “high-risk” behavior, like injection drug use or sex with other men. The system can’t account for this—it was never adapted to consider women’s particular experiences, nor does it take into account various socioeconomic factors like poverty, domestic violence and other issues that place women and others at greater risk of HIV.
CDC data has broad implications for how HIV/AIDS is addressed nationwide. It shapes understanding of the epidemic among health professionals, policymakers and the general public and informs funding, policies and programs intended to prevent, treat, and ultimately, bring an end to HIV/AIDS. Because of the CDC’s failure to fully consider women’s lives, its data, published year after year, has perpetuated gross misinformation and the under- or misallocation of resources for women at risk of and living with HIV/AIDS—from the community to the national level.
Without careful revision of the CDC HIV surveillance system, women will remain largely invisible and continue to fall through the cracks of HIV testing, prevention, treatment and care.
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