Join Us: Observing National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day 2018

Ed. note: This blog was originally published on https://www.hiv.gov/blog/join-us-observing-national-asian-pacific-islander-hivaids-awareness-day-2018 "

On Saturday, May 19th, 2018, the HIV community marks National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. This observance highlights the impact of HIV and AIDS on the diverse members of this community. The 2018 campaign slogan is “Love & Solidarity: Together PrEP, Testing and Treatment can end HIV.” The Banyan Tree Project and the San Francisco Community Health Center (formerly API Wellness Center) lead this national health observance.

The HIV.gov team encourages all readers to join the conversation about National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Here’s a few ways:

• Use the hashtag #APIMay19
• Use HIV.gov’s basic information to share the facts about HIV, to help raise HIV awareness, and to focus on the importance of HIV testing, stigma and its effects.
• Use the widget to add the HIV Testing Sites & Care Services Locator to your site.

Topics to Follow

On and beyond May 19th, we at HIV.gov work to make it easy for our readers to stay in the know. Here are some of our topic tags that can help.

• Prevention
• Testing
• Treatment
• PrEP
• Stigma
• National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
• Awareness Days

More Observance Day Resources

We invite you to visit our National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day page and our health observances section and download the newly updated Activities Planning Guide.

In Sum

“We hope that other community members in the API community and allies who wish to support this important effort will observe May 19th. Under the resource section of The Banyan Tree Project website , our toolkit provides posters, factsheets on HIV in API communities, one on PrEP and another on stigma. All are available to download. Please contact us at The Banyan Tree Project for more information. info@banyantreeproject.org.” --Brian Ragas, Communications Manager, San Francisco Community Health Center (formerly API Wellness).

“This much is clear. If we’re going to have sustained success in the fight against HIV and to improve the health of AAPI and all communities, we’re going to have to work together,” said Dr. Matthew Lin, HHS Deputy Director for Minority Health and Director of the HHS Office of Minority Health. “National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is an opportunity to highlight the important partnerships and vital work happening every day of the year in communities throughout the country.”