The campus community is invited to view the documentary
Miss HIV -- and hear UCSF experts talking about strategies to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa -- at 6 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 25, in Cole Hall Auditorium on the UCSF Parnassus campus.
The free event, sponsored by UCSF Public Affairs and open to the public, features several UCSF researchers, including Norman Hearst, MD, PhD, professor of family and community medicine. Hearst is profiled in the documentary
Miss HIV, which examines, in part, the western medical community's varying approaches to HIV/AIDS prevention in Africa in the context of ideology and HIV/AIDS stigma.
"Film can be a powerful medium that communicates on a different level than a scientific article," says Hearst. "Sometimes there is no substitute for seeing faces and letting people tell their own stories."
The film examines western approaches to prevention in sub-Saharan Africa and uses the controversial
Miss HIV beauty contest in Botswana as a backdrop. The journey of two HIV-positive women who enter the contest provides a launching point for analysis from community leaders and experts on progress made in preventing the transmission of HIV in Africa.
Included on the panel is Gertrude Khumalo-Sakutukwa, MMEdSc, a research specialist at the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies. Having worked at the University of Zimbabwe for nearly a decade before arriving at UCSF, Khumalo-Sakutukwa will reflect on the complexity of the problem. "HIV prevention has a great deal to do with gender and power dynamics," said Khumalo-Sakutukwa.
The filmmakers seek to humanize the epidemic and foster a discussion. "We wanted to give a human face to women who dare to fight AIDS stigma by entering the Miss HIV pageant, and a human face to the young people in Uganda who dare to abstain from sex, and yet are stigmatized by their choice as well," says Jim Hanon, director of
Miss HIV.
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Scene from Miss HIV |
The film is stylistically edgy and is designed to appeal to a youthful audience. The purpose of the panel is to foster a discussion about varying viewpoints and approaches to HIV/AIDS prevention in sub-Saharan Africa and to showcase examples of UCSF's ongoing commitment to global health.
Panelists for the Jan. 25 event are:
- • David Bangsberg, MD, MPH, an associate professor of medicine in residence and scientist at the AIDS Research Institute
- • Gertrude Khumalo-Sakutukwa, MMEdSc, a research specialist at the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies
- • Norman Hearst, MD, PhD, professor of family and community medicine
- • Prasanna Jagannathan, MD, resident and clinical scholar, Global Health Sciences
David Bangsberg
Bangsberg is an associate professor of medicine in residence in the Division of Infectious Diseases and the San Francisco General Hospital HIV/AIDS Division at UCSF. He directs the Epidemiology and Prevention Interventions Center, an infectious disease epidemiology research unit at San Francisco General Hospital, and is a primary care physician for HIV-positive patients in the Ward 86 clinic at SFGH.
Bangsberg's research program in rural Uganda focuses on addressing structural and behavioral barriers to sustained HIV care, with particular interest in social capital, stigma, food access and transportation. He leads the
Family Treatment Fund (FTF), which was the first free HIV treatment program in Southwest Uganda. FTF now provides HIV treatment to individuals on wait lists for multinational programs and during pharmacy stock-outs. FTF also sponsors several microfinance programs to provide sustainable income to cover transport costs for access to HIV treatment.
Norman Hearst
Hearst's interests focus on building research capacity in the developing world, with an emphasis on AIDS prevention. He is a family medicine physician with a special interest in HIV and AIDS epidemiology and prevention, expanding research capacity in developing countries and international health. In addition to treating patients, Hearst is director of the UCSF Family and Community Medicine Research Fellowship Training Program and a professor in the UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine. He is featured in the documentary film
Miss HIV.
Gertrude Khumalo-Sakutukwa
Khumalo-Sakutukwa's research interests focus on HIV prevention strategies, voluntary counseling and testing, community-level interventions, culturally tailored interventions, social science interventions and women-initiated HIV prevention methods. Having worked at the University of Zimbabwe for nearly a decade, Khumalo-Sakutukwa will share her perspectives on gender and power dynamics as related to HIV prevention in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Her current research projects include a mobile testing unit. The National Institute of Mental Health phase III, randomized, controlled trial is being conducted in sub-Saharan Africa and Thailand.
Prasanna Jagannathan
Jagannathan is a third-year internal medicine resident in the San Francisco General Hospital UCSF primary care internal medicine residency and plans on pursuing a career in global infectious diseases. His research interests include community-based treatment of HIV and antiretroviral adherence, mechanisms of immunologic control of HIV, and HIV-coinfection with malaria, tuberculosis and cytomcagalovirus. He recently returned from Kampala, Uganda, where he studied the safety and tolerability of anti-malarial treatment in Ugandan children. Next year, Jagannathan will be a chief resident in internal medicine at UCSF, continuing his training through an infectious diseases fellowship.
Moderator: Shipra Shukla, Public Affairs.
Related Links:
Miss HIV
Working to Fill AIDS Treatment Gap in UgandaUCSF Today, Feb. 10, 2006
