American Journal of Public Health Publishes Second Issue Dedicated to LGBT Health, Including HIV/AIDS
The American Journal of Public Health this month released its second issue in two years focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender health, including several articles on HIV/AIDS. The journal's editorial team is "dedicated to addressing the breadth of HIV/AIDS issues -- from health and human rights and international financing of treatment to domestic programs centered around needle exchange and violence prevention -- ... focus[ing] on the particular needs of vulnerable communities and why public health approaches have remained stubbornly ineffective in marginalized populations," Editor-in-Chief Mary Northridge writes in an introduction (Northridge, American Journal of Public Health, June 2003). In addition to several studies and literature reviews on HIV/AIDS, the issue contains the following opinion pieces:
- Michael Gross, "When Plagues Don't End": Health care experts have "little more today than we had two decades ago" to prevent the spread of HIV, Michael Gross, the journal's associate editor for HIV/AIDS and lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender health and the lead editor for the June issue of AJPH, writes in an editorial. Gross says that the public health community needs "new biomedical technologies as well as rigorous assessment and effective translation and dissemination of behavioral approaches that never were adequately developed and implemented in the first place to address the prevention needs" of men who have sex with men. "Perhaps most important, somehow we need to immunize prevention science, programs and policies against stigma, political opportunism and sanctimony," Gross concludes (Gross, American Journal of Public Health, June 2003).
- David Malebranche, "Black Men Who Have Sex With Men and the HIV Epidemic: Next Steps for Public Health": In order to improve HIV prevention and outreach among black MSM, public health researchers must conduct research in a more "culturally appropriate" manner; research the differences in how sexual partners are selected and behavioral risks assessed among BMSM versus other MSM; and recognize the increased infectivity resulting from higher rates of other sexually transmitted diseases among BMSM, David Malebranche, a professor at the Emory University School of Medicine, writes in an editorial. "Our understanding of infectiousness and susceptibility among BMSM must be informed by considerations of the interactions between the immune system, psychology, culture and social context, including the health care setting ... [which may] hel[p] to perpetuate rather than ameliorate the HIV epidemic," Malebranche concludes (Malebranche, American Journal of Public Health, June 2003).