From 18-23 July, the city of Vienna will host the XVIII International AIDS Conference, the premier gathering for those working in the field of HIV, as well as policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the pandemic. The conference offers a forum to present new scientific knowledge, and for structured dialogue on the major issues facing the global response to HIV.

HEARD has 11 representatives attending the conference; in addition to researchers, these include HEARD’s executive director, its African Leadership and Capacity Building programmes leader and its communications and marketing manager. Representatives will be participating in a spectrum of activities during the conference to share knowledge and evidence from HEARD’s research and to raise awareness of who HEARD is and what we do.

In addition to the HEARD exhibition stand, which is being designed and co-ordinated by our communications and marketing manager, HEARD staff will present 15 research posters summarising a selection of their research work. The titles of these provide some insight into the range of HIV related issues the posters aim to capture:

HEARD research poster titles for XVIII International AIDS Conference

1. Tangible skills building and HIV-interventions.
2. Addressing the constraints to primary school education in Swaziland: The need for holistic structural interventions to build resilience to HIV and to strengthen human capital in a maturing AIDS epidemic.
3. Creating social environments that support effective community mobilisation: A case study of home-based care in rural South Africa.
4. The importance of community: Lessons from an analysis of community- based responses to impacts of HIV/AIDS in the Kingdom of Swaziland.
5. Seen but not heard - people with disabilities in National Strategic Plans on HIV.
6. Improving access to basic education for Swaziland’s women: Building resilience to HIV and strengthening gender empowerment programmes.
7. A review of NSPs in southern and eastern Africa to establish the extent to which they respond to the needs of people with disabilities.
8. Contrasting accounts of the impact of caregiving on carers in South Africa: An urban-rural comparison.
9. Discourses of male condom non-use in South Africa.
10. Political rights for universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support.
11. Representations of XDR-TB in South African newspapers.
12. The role of the political economy in determining HIV and AIDS policies
13. Long Wave Epidemics: Climate change, HIV/AIDS and systems responses
14. Psychosocial and behavioural correlates of attitudes towards Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) in a sample of South African mineworkers.
15. Which teachers talk about sex? Psycho-social determinants of educator engagement with high school learners on HIV/AIDS and sexual practices

For more information about the XVIII International AIDS Conference, please visit www.aids2010.org.

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