Tom Donohoe, MBA
Director and Principal Investigator, UCLA AETC, Pacific AETC
U.S.-Mexico Border Project Coordinator, Pacific AETC

AETC members of the Federal Training Center Collaborative (FTCC) Border Project were busy in Washington, DC in July at the International AIDS Conference (IAC). We participated in a pre-conference, invitation-only satellite session on HIV and migration and represented the larger group for a poster session that described our 10 years of collaboration on the border.  Those attending also organized a United States-Mexico HIV border-binational partnerships reception that was similar to an event we held at the 2008 IAC in Mexico City.  The 2012 reception recognized the following individuals for their extraordinary support of collaboration across the border and across U.S. government agencies to support continuity of care for HIV-infected migrants in the border region.

Tom Donohoe, MBA Director, UCLA Local Performance Site, Pacific AETC U.S.-Mexico Border Project Coordinator, Pacific AETC

Over the past couple months I have completed trainings in both rural and urban areas of the border in California and Arizona. We also had an UMBAST face-to-face meeting on the border near Brownsville, Texas. I’d like to use this posting as a discussion of unmet border needs. I’d like to hear about your HIV-related training and technical assistance (TA) needs as providers in community clinics and organizations on the border. Over the next 3 years the AETCs and other federal training centers (FTCs) covering TB, substance abuse, STDs, prevention, and family planning will collaborate with UMBAST to better serve border community health centers.

Tom Donohoe, MBA
Director, UCLA Local Performance Site, Pacific AETC
U.S.-Mexico Border Project Coordinator, Pacific AETC

If you are reading this entry it is likely that you work on the U.S. border, are interested in HIV along the U.S. border, or are looking for border-related HIV resources. For clarity you should know that ‘the border’ covers U.S. communities 60 miles above Mexico and stretches 2,000 miles long from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Border-related HIV issues like migrant populations, urban and rural health, substance abuse, and stigma, for example, are topics that are not unique to this area, but are highlighted there.