Katrena Faison, an instructor at LA Fitness and the YMCA, leads the Zumba warm-up before the fourth annual Red Wig Walk to raise awareness for HIV prevention on the levee near the USS Kidd in downtown Baton Rouge on Saturday, May 20, 2017. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Baton Rouge is defined by its resilient spirit and sense of community. Through partnership, the community is tapping into this strength to address HIV and improve health systems in the city.
The south continues to experience the highest burden of HIV and HIV-related deaths of any U.S. region, yet Baton Rouge is emerging as a national beacon of hope thanks to an “all-hands-on-deck” approach that unites government, providers, community and the private sector.
The progress in addressing the HIV epidemic is driven by partnership and the leadership of Baton Rouge, including Mayor-President Sharon Weston-Broome, is showing us how. A decade ago, Baton Rouge collaborated with Gilead Sciences' FOCUS program to engage emergency departments to conduct routine opt-out HIV screening and link patients to care. Almost half of health care encounters in our country are in the emergency department, and by testing patients who do not “opt out,” emergency departments can handle HIV testing like some other diseases and foster earlier diagnosis and care for those who need it most.
This approach complements the work of traditional community-based screening and most importantly normalizes, ro.