At the Intersection of Health, Health Care and Policy Cite this article as: Jessica Bylander Mapping The HIV/AIDS Epidemic Health Affairs, 33, no.3 (2014):427 doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0049
The online version of this article, along with updated information and services, is available at: http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/33/3/427.full.html
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Health Affairs is published monthly by Project HOPE at 7500 Old Georgetown Road, Suite 600, Bethesda, MD 20814-6133. Copyright © 2014 by Project HOPE - The People-to-People Health Foundation. As provided by United States copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code), no part of Health Affairs may be reproduced, displayed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or by information storage or retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the Publisher. All rights reserved.
Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution Downloaded from content.healthaffairs.org by Health Affairs on July 9, 2015 at UNIV OF MICHIGAN
People
&
Places
Visualizing HIV/AIDS: AIDSVu, seen here on the desktop of an HIV advocate, is a compilation of interactive online maps that visualize complicated data sets on the domestic HIV epidemic to illustrate the communities most heavily affected by HIV and AIDS. doi:
10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0049
Mapping The HIV/AIDS Epidemic One organization is using new mapping techniques to change how people see the impact of HIV on their communities. BY JESSICA BYLANDER
A
fter twelve years of working in HIV/AIDS surveillance at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Patrick Sullivan was comfortable scouring dozens of pages of Excel tables tracking HIV prevalence in the United States. But he and a team from Emory University had an inkling that most people don’t process information the same way.
Photograph by AIDSVu
The desire to make the data more userfriendly led Sullivan and his colleagues to launch http://AIDSVu.org in 2010, providing open access to interactive online maps depicting HIV prevalence and new diagnoses at the state, county, and local levels. The team’s mission is to change the conversation about how HIV is affecting communities. “We’re sensitive that people take in information in different ways,” says
Sullivan, the lead researcher of AIDSVu and a professor of epidemiology at Emory University. “We noticed that there was a lot of HIV surveillance data that was being put out there in tabular form, but it wasn’t... resonating with people,” adds AIDSVu’s project director Travis Sanchez, also an associate research professor of epidemiology at Emory. Additionally, the maps show locations of HIV testing and treatment centers, as well as the sites of National Institutes of Health–funded HIV prevention, vaccine, and treatment trials. Users can pull up side-by-side maps that show demographic data—including race and ethnicity, poverty rates, and insurance status—to better understand how these factors and HIV prevalence may be linked. The data—all publicly available—come from the CDC, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and state and local health departments. The site is sponsored in part by biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. In December 2013 the White House highlighted AIDSVu as an example of a public-private partnership that is helping improve outcomes along the HIV care continuum and included the maps in its HIV Care Continuum Initiative status report. At the local level communities are starting to use the maps to target screening and clinical services to the areas that need it most. For example, communitybased organization Medical AIDS Outreach of Alabama used the maps to successfully advocate for a system of telemedicine clinics in the state. In the years ahead AIDSVu intends to roll out a number of new tools that will allow users to map the HIV care continuum within cities, illustrating not just diagnoses but how people access care. “The end goal is to make the data as usable as possible [and] as accessible as possible, and to lead people to action,” Sullivan says. ▪ Jessica Bylander ([email protected]) is a senior editor at Health Affairs, in Bethesda, Maryland.
March 2014
33:3
Downloaded from content.healthaffairs.org by Health Affairs on July 9, 2015 at UNIV OF MICHIGAN
Health Affairs
427
The online version of this article, along with updated information and services, is available at: http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/33/3/427.full.html
For Reprints, Links & Permissions: http://healthaffairs.org/1340_reprints.php E-mail Alerts : http://content.healthaffairs.org/subscriptions/etoc.dtl To Subscribe: http://content.healthaffairs.org/subscriptions/online.shtml
Health Affairs is published monthly by Project HOPE at 7500 Old Georgetown Road, Suite 600, Bethesda, MD 20814-6133. Copyright © 2014 by Project HOPE - The People-to-People Health Foundation. As provided by United States copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code), no part of Health Affairs may be reproduced, displayed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or by information storage or retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the Publisher. All rights reserved.
Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution Downloaded from content.healthaffairs.org by Health Affairs on July 9, 2015 at UNIV OF MICHIGAN
People
&
Places
Visualizing HIV/AIDS: AIDSVu, seen here on the desktop of an HIV advocate, is a compilation of interactive online maps that visualize complicated data sets on the domestic HIV epidemic to illustrate the communities most heavily affected by HIV and AIDS. doi:
10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0049
Mapping The HIV/AIDS Epidemic One organization is using new mapping techniques to change how people see the impact of HIV on their communities. BY JESSICA BYLANDER
A
fter twelve years of working in HIV/AIDS surveillance at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Patrick Sullivan was comfortable scouring dozens of pages of Excel tables tracking HIV prevalence in the United States. But he and a team from Emory University had an inkling that most people don’t process information the same way.
Photograph by AIDSVu
The desire to make the data more userfriendly led Sullivan and his colleagues to launch http://AIDSVu.org in 2010, providing open access to interactive online maps depicting HIV prevalence and new diagnoses at the state, county, and local levels. The team’s mission is to change the conversation about how HIV is affecting communities. “We’re sensitive that people take in information in different ways,” says
Sullivan, the lead researcher of AIDSVu and a professor of epidemiology at Emory University. “We noticed that there was a lot of HIV surveillance data that was being put out there in tabular form, but it wasn’t... resonating with people,” adds AIDSVu’s project director Travis Sanchez, also an associate research professor of epidemiology at Emory. Additionally, the maps show locations of HIV testing and treatment centers, as well as the sites of National Institutes of Health–funded HIV prevention, vaccine, and treatment trials. Users can pull up side-by-side maps that show demographic data—including race and ethnicity, poverty rates, and insurance status—to better understand how these factors and HIV prevalence may be linked. The data—all publicly available—come from the CDC, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and state and local health departments. The site is sponsored in part by biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. In December 2013 the White House highlighted AIDSVu as an example of a public-private partnership that is helping improve outcomes along the HIV care continuum and included the maps in its HIV Care Continuum Initiative status report. At the local level communities are starting to use the maps to target screening and clinical services to the areas that need it most. For example, communitybased organization Medical AIDS Outreach of Alabama used the maps to successfully advocate for a system of telemedicine clinics in the state. In the years ahead AIDSVu intends to roll out a number of new tools that will allow users to map the HIV care continuum within cities, illustrating not just diagnoses but how people access care. “The end goal is to make the data as usable as possible [and] as accessible as possible, and to lead people to action,” Sullivan says. ▪ Jessica Bylander ([email protected]) is a senior editor at Health Affairs, in Bethesda, Maryland.
March 2014
33:3
Downloaded from content.healthaffairs.org by Health Affairs on July 9, 2015 at UNIV OF MICHIGAN
Health Affairs
427
