Mapping Pathways Project Reaches International Audience at ICASA 2011

Molly Morgan Jones speaks with conference delegates

23 December 2011 &mdash RAND Europe Senior Analyst Molly Morgan Jones visited Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to present findings from RAND Europe's Mapping Pathways project at the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) 2011.

Mapping Pathways is a two-year, multinational project to develop and nurture a research-driven, community-led global understanding of the emerging evidence on the adoption of antiretroviral-based prevention strategies to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The project is a collaboration between RAND researchers and community partners in South Africa (the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation), the United States (AIDS United and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago), and India (NAZ India). RAND leads the project's research activities, while a final collaborator, Baird's CMC, provides communication support.

Morgan Jones attended the conference with project partner Jim Pickett from the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. ICASA, one of the major international AIDS conferences, is held every two years in Africa. The December 2011 conference was attended by more than 10,000 delegates from around the world, including community advocates, representatives, health care workers, and researchers from developing countries. The poster presentations were well attended, and Morgan Jones and Pickett spoke with many delegates who were interested in having their countries serve as additional case-study sites. The project also seemed to fill a gap in the knowledge base as one of the few presentations on antiretroviral-based prevention.

The next phase of the Mapping Pathways project will involve disseminating findings and continuing to engage with communities and policymakers to support decisionmaking with regard to HIV/AIDS prevention strategies. The project team hopes to present the final results at AIDS 2012, one of the largest international AIDS conferences, which will be held in July in Washington, D.C.