Over a year ago, the first-ever national, Black-focused HIV Prevention Research Agenda was created.
This included strategies to identify Black researchers, research networks, and federal entities for engagement with creating equitable PrEP access for the Black community through HIV participation in HIV prevention research.
Advancing the Movement: HIV Prevention Research for Black Communities
In recognition of National Minority Health Month, this first-ever team comprised of 100 Black researchers, scientists, and stakeholders from across America joined PrEP in Black America (PIBA) and officially launched the findings of the National Black HIV Prevention Research Agenda at a researcher-focused, invite-only convening at Ebenezer Baptist Church that precedes the 2025 Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit.
“Advancing the movement” is more than a report, it’s a call to action, a cultural archive, and a love letter to Black communities across the nation, according to the Black Public Health Academy BPHA)
“This report is birthed from the belief that centering Black culture is not optional, but essential. At this moment in history, when new HIV diagnoses continue to disproportionately impact our people, we need a research agenda that does not just include us, but is led by us, focused on us, and centered in our cultural truths,” according to the excerpt in the publication by BPHA.
Through various nationwide engagement efforts that included Black researchers, faith leaders, healthcare providers, advocates, people living with HIV, people on PrEP, and more, the Black P.O.W.E.R. Framework was created.
The Black P.O.W.E.R. (Pipeline, Ongoing Funding, Widespread Education, Empowerment, and Reform) Framework is designed to transform the relationship Black communities have with research.
· Pipeline and Mentorship Programs: scholarships, fellowships, structured pathways at all educational levels
· Ongoing Direct Funding: Multi-year funding for Black-led CBOs without large institutions passing through
· Widespread Education on PrEP and HIV Science: provide tailored messaging across all traditional Black spaces
· Empower the Black Public Health Workforce: Ensure Black professionals in key community, research, policy, and roles
· Reform Policy for a National PrEP Program: Federally funded PrEP, lab work, telehealth, and HIV supportive services
Actions for researchers and institutions include reform grants, foster authentic partnerships, invest in Black talent, and advocate for system change. Actions for black communities include claiming your power, having peer-led platforms, nurture new leadership, and demand accountability.
CEO of Black Public Health Academy Leisha McKinley-Beach says the unveiling of the Black HIV research agenda is looking at what their collective strategies are and creating a blueprint to get to the end of new HIV diagnosis in Black communities across the country.
“We’re really excited to finally be able to bring this report to fruition and talk about what implantation looks like across the United States,” she said.
She also said the significance of the agenda is they’re looking at similar strategies to maximize impact in the work and efforts to end the HIV epidemic, particularly in black communities who are disproportionately affected.
“We know within black communities across the U.S. that you’re going to see some unique perspectives, but the framing of the foundation of how we’re implementing these prevention strategies will be very similar,” she said. “We have black researchers who have come and convened in Atlanta at the country’s freedom church, Ebenezer Baptist Church, to talk about how we implement that. Today is a celebration, but tomorrow, we get to work.”
John Meade, senior program manager for policy from the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC), said they are all convened at a time of both “reckoning and resistance”.
“While the science has never been clearer, the political climate has never been more volatile. Across the country, we are witnessing gross threats to public health infrastructure, to LGBTQ+ rights, to bodily autonomy against our own community, and yes, to the integrity and funding of HIV research itself,” he said.
Meade said these attacks do not occur in isolation but are a part of a broader movement to undermine evidence-based interventions and erase the very communities that are most impacted by HIV, like the black community.
“As researchers, we cannot afford to be neutral in the face of such erosion. The stakes are too high, and silence is not an option. This agenda was not written in isolation. It was built community by community, for community,” Meade said.
The process, he said, to shape community began a year ago at the biomedical HIV prevention summit in Seattle, Washington which marked a pivotal turning point that created a space where researchers, advocates, and community leaders came together to envision a research black-focused agenda.
He also said PIBA is grounded in an intersectional framework rooted in the historical context of racial oppression as the structural driver of the HIV epidemic in black communities. PIBA, he says, challenges them to name anti-blackness as a public health crisis and to center their research and resources accordingly.
“Unapologetically Black is a bold and visionary coalition and has been at the forefront of this work ensuring that biomedical prevention tools like PrEP are not only accessible, but acceptable, affirming, and aligned with the lived realities of black people,” he said.
Furthermore, this agenda is crucial, he said, because black communities continue to bear a disproportionate burden of the HIV epidemic, and it’s not due to a lack of resilience or responsibility, but to the lack of resources, representation, and respect in systems that were never fully designed with Black people in mind to begin with.
Danielle Campbell, faculty at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine iStrive Research Lab, said this agenda will inform the development of culturally tailored prevention strategies, informed policy decisions, and ultimately help them build a future where black lives are not defined by health disparities, but by opportunity and health equity.
“The National Black HIV prevention research agenda rejects the status quo, and we will no longer sit idly by. The research agenda reimagines how research for black people is conceptualized, funded, conducted, applied, operationalized, and all the like in black communities,” she said.
The agenda, she says, calls for a shift in power, a shift in resources, and decision-making authority from traditional research institutions to Black-led organizations that understand the communities they serve, who are not just subjects of a research study but partners in creating solutions.
The agenda also is described as both visionary and pragmatic, which acknowledges funding uncertainties but refuses to accept them as a reason for delay.
Also, during the press conference, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, and United States Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) also made virtual appearances via video messages.
Dickens said this event is supposed to introduce a report that reflects the voices and input of black communities across the nation.
“I’m especially proud that the important work of PrEP in Black America was born right here in Atlanta and it’s a privilege to stand alongside leaders who are committed to ending the HIV epidemic in our city, across Georgia, and nationwide,” he said.
Dickens also said HIV continues to impact communities, particularly the black community who are disproportionately affected.
“We know when we come together, researchers, advocates, policy makers, and everyday people, we can make real progress in ending new HIV diagnosis,” he said. “This is more than a press conference, it’s an opportunity to implement a black-led, black-centered, and black-focused exit strategy to define the path to end HIV.”
Warnock followed by saying the work the researchers and scientists have been conducting is important for the Black community.
“Thank you to all the researchers and scientists who have stayed committed for decades in many of the cities and places where I’ve worked as a student in my early years as a pastor in New York, Baltimore, and Atlanta,” he said. “I’ve seen up close how the unholy trinity of stigma, silence, and shame create pain, not only for the person who is dealing with this disease, but to those whom they love.”
He also referenced the Secretary Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy laying off the entire staff of the National Center for HIV, the Office of Infectious Disease, and HIV/AIDS policy, calling it reckless.
“These efforts need more funding, not reckless mass fires, so as we navigate these unprecedented times, I will remain engaged in the fight and be your steadfast pastor and partner in this important work. Continue your amazing work and keep the faith,” he said.
Furthermore, as a comment from Beach herself, and not on behalf of any organization, she said the infrastructure of public health does not serve black communities well.
“It was never designed for us, and I speak as someone who has worked in health departments the majority of my public health career, it’s never designed to get us to wellness, but in many ways designed to keep us ill because that’s where the profit comes from,” she said. “So, now here we are at a crossroads where it has been dismantled.”
She says the beauty of what happens when things get destroyed is the opportunity to rebuild something beautiful and looks like “us” and to not depend on federal funding.
For more information, visit https://www.theblackhealthacademy.com. For PrEP, HIV, and any other resources, visit https://georgiathrives.org, https://heymistr.com, and https://www.aidatlanta.org.
