Administration on Aging 

HIV and Aging Webinar 

June 14, 2011 

Administration on Aging 

HIV and Aging Webinar 

Positive Aging: HIV Turns 30

June 14, 2011 

2:00-3:30 pm Eastern

Coordinator: Welcome. Thank you, everyone, for standing by. At this time all participants 

are in a listen-only mode. To ask a question during the question and answer 

session please press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. 

Today’s conference is being recorded. If you have any objections you may 

disconnect. And now I’d like to turn the call over your host today, Ms. 

Danielle Nelson. Ma’am, you may begin. 

Danielle Nelson: Thank you, (Fran), and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us for 

today’s Positive Aging HIV Turns 30 Webinar. My name is Danielle Nelson, 

as (Fran) said, and I will be your moderator for today’s Webinar. 

Before we get started and I introduce our first speaker I have a few quick 

housekeeping announcements. If you have not done so, please use the link 

included in your email confirmation to get on to Webex so that you can not 

only follow along with the slides as we go through them but also ask questions 

when you have them through the chat function in Webex. 

If you do not have access to the link we emailed you, you can also go to 

Webex.com and click on attend a meeting. That button is at the top of the 

page and then you’ll enter the meeting number which is 668461782.If you 

have any problems with getting into Webex please call the Webex technical 

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support at 1-866-569-3239. Again that number for the Webex technical 

support is 1-866-569-3239. 

As (Fran) mentioned, all participants are in the listen-only mode. However 

you’re welcome to ask your questions throughout the course of this Webinar. 

There are two ways that you can ask questions. The first is through Webex 

using the chat function. You can enter your questions and I will sort through 

them and answer them the best that I can throughout as well as at the end of 

the presentations. 

In addition, after our final speaker we will offer you a chance to ask your 

question through the audio line. When that time comes (Fran) will give you 

instructions as how to queue up to ask your questions. 

It there are any questions that can’t be answered during the course of this 

Webinar we will follow up to be sure that we get those questions answered. If 

you think of anything after the Webinar you can also email them to us at my 

email address which is danielle.nelson@aoa.hhs.gov and that will be at the 

end of the slides as well, that email as well as the speaker email addresses will 

be included in the final PowerPoint slide of today’s presentation. 

As (Fran) mentioned we are recording this Webinar. We will post the 

recording, this PowerPoint slides and a transcript of this Webinar on the AOA 

Web site. That’s www.aoa.gov. It will be up as soon as possible by the end of 

this week. 

As we get started I’d like to say - black or white, gay or straight, the face that 

most Americans imagine when they think about HIV and AIDS isn’t 

particularly wrinkled. Yet 15% of all new cases of HIV are occurring 

amongst people who have lived over half a century and beyond. 

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With the advent of the 21st Century HIV prevention and treatment have 

become important issues to older Americans. That being said, who better to 

get things started for today’s Webinar about HIV in Aging than the Assistant 

Secretary for Aging at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services? 

I’d like to now introduce Ms. Kathy Greenlee. 

Kathy Greenlee: Thank you, Danielle, for the introduction and welcome, everybody on the call, 

a significant number of participants as well as the presenters. We are very 

pleased of your interest and I’d also like to thank the AOA staff who’ve been 

working so hard to put on the Webinar. 

We know that the Webinar helps us acknowledge here at Health and Human 

Services the 30th anniversary since the first case of HIV was diagnosed in this 

country. And for us to move forward and work on the issue of older adults and 

HIV we really need the help and support of both the private sector and the 

public sector so we can raise awareness about prevention and testing as well 

as the treatment needs of aging populations. 

Our role at the Administration on Aging in particular is to be part of the 

implementation plan for the national strategy on HIV/AIDS and to continue to 

help our partners here at the federal level develop a plan that focuses on older 

adults and HIV. 

In the last 30 years we’ve learned a lot and we can draw upon that knowledge 

as we work to educate the aging network which includes state and area 

agencies on aging, local providers and we need to work with the entire 

network to focus on the critical importance of educating older adults about 

HIV prevention as well as informing people about the complexities of 

treatment for older adults. 

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We have a number of good partners. Some of them are participating today. 

SAGE of course, the National Resource Center for LGBT Aging. We work 

with other populations that focus on other resource centers and organizations 

that focus on high incidents of population such as the National Caucus and 

Center for Black Aging and the National Association for Hispanic Elderly. 

We really encourage you, both the participants on the call as well as the 

presenters, to stay engaged with us and communicate with us so that we can 

bring to the field the best conversation and information as we work with the 

network and provide services to older people in all settings who are living 

with HIV. 

It’s an interesting challenge. I had the opportunity to speak about older adults 

and HIV at a White House event and said, you know, we’ve tackled quite a lot 

to deal with sexual activity, HIV in Aging all in the same kind of initiative. 

Each of those particular issues are challenging enough separately let alone 

needing to address them all at the same time. So it will take all of us to bring 

this matter forward and continue to focus on the support that we can provide. 

I wanted to just end and tell you that I remember 30 years ago. I remember 

when AIDS and HIV were first recognized and diagnosed in this country and 

the impact it had in that particular time on the LGBT community although I 

understand it’s broader. 

When I came to Washington two years ago I had the chance to talk to my staff 

about elder adults and HIV and I just wanted to share with you, as we kick off 

the call, my own reaction 30 years later when I started looking at the issue. 

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And my reaction when we start talking about people with HIV who are older 

was pretty basic. It was ah, yeah, they lived. And that reaction, it really is 

testament that I remember 30 years ago and those of us working on this issue 

for a long time never thought we’d get to this day where we had people living 

with this disease for so long. 

And so I think my message is that people live and people live with HIV and 

we need to work to support people who’ve been living with this disease for a 

long time, people who have acquired it more recently regardless of the source. 

But there are older adults living with HIV and there’s a lot we can do to 

continue to education America because this is a day we were hoping would 

come, that we could all talk about people living to old age with HIV. 

And I think it’s a positive message to the network as we look at prevention 

and treatment as well as empowerment of people. And so I really thank the 

speakers on the phone who are working with us on all three; prevention, 

treatment as well as empowerment. 

So, Danielle, I’ll turn it back to you and just wish you all good luck and a very 

successful Webinar today. 

Danielle Nelson: Thank you so much. And now I’d like to thank each of our speakers here with 

us today for their time and efforts on a very important topic. 

I would like to introduce our first speaker today. Mr. Stephen Karpiak has a 

distinguished career as a research scientist. After 25-year research career in 

neurobiology and immunology on the faculty of Columbia University Medical 

School he began his first HIV/AIDS community work in 1995 as the program 

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director at AIDS Project, Arizona, and founded the Arizona AIDS Project 

Wellness Center. 

He later was the executive director for A Place Called Home which provided 

congregate nursing for the homeless with HIV/AIDS. He returned to New 

York City to become a New York foundation sponsored executive director for 

Pride Senior Network which advocated and did research on the aging LGBT 

community. 

For the last eight years he has been the research director at the AIDS 

Community Research Initiative of America known as ACRIA where he 

initiated collaborative seminal research studies on HIV in Aging. His large 

cohort study, known as ROAH, Research on Older Adults with HIV, has been 

a catalyst for giving the issue priority status. 

He was appointed to the faculty at NYU College of Nursing and NYU 

Medical CSAR in 2008 and he is a member of the American Academy of HIV 

Medicine in the American Geriatric Society’s effort to provide guidelines for 

the management of older adults with HIV. 

Without further ado I’d like to pass things over to Mr. Stephen Karpiak. 

Stephen Karpiak: Thank you, Danielle, and thanks to the Administration on Aging for taking the 

lead on this issue. 

I’m going to first say a few words about my agency, ACRIA. We actually are 

celebrating 20 years this year in the fight in this epidemic. We have been 

providing clinical trials to folks who do not normally have access. I’m going 

to talk about our older adult research and our largest effort is really in 

education and health literacy and you’ll hear more about that as I proceed. 

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It’s been 30 years as was mentioned and in 1990 there had been a 160,000 

Americans diagnosed with AIDS and by the end of 1990 110,000 of those had 

died. In 2010 there are 1.1 million Americans living with HIV and by 2015 

the CDC estimates is half of all Americans with HIV/AIDS will be over the 

age of 50. 

The government has taken notice as it has today and that’s an important signal 

to us. In September, 2008, HHS established the National HIV/AIDS in Aging 

Awareness Day and last October the White House Office on National AIDS 

Policy convened a special meeting on HIV in Aging. 

I just want to go over just as a basic disease process, from the day of infection 

to when people come down with AIDS, this is a 10-year process. The immune 

system is fighting back along the way but when we get to AIDS the immune 

system is collapsing. 

With the introduction of HAART, which is treatment for HIV, we find that 

people who adhere and take their meds will not go onto AIDS and therefore 

have a much more healthier life. 

The CDC policy these days is now to test, test, test and to get folks into 

treatment. The earlier we test, the earlier we find someone is infected and then 

put them on treatment, the better will be their health outcomes for the rest of 

their life. 

Also HIV treatment is becoming a prevention methodology in that if people 

are on their medication, the number of viruses, if you will, in their body is 

lower and therefore their infectivity is decreased. 

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Here’s some data. In 1994 you can see there were about 20,000 over age 50 

living with AIDS. In 2005 that number quadrupled. With the introduction of 

HAART, before HAART was introduced the average life span was about two, 

maybe four years unless you had an HIV/AIDS diagnosis. But after the 

introduction of these very effective medications you can see life span increase 

from 24, 27, 33 years and increasing. 

Here’s data from the U.S. showing the number of people, percent of people, 

living with AIDS diagnosis over age 50 in the U.S. You don’t have to be a 

scientist, you don’t have to be a statistician to look at this graph and see ah-ha, 

something’s happening here. It’s very clear that the number of older adults is 

increasing who live with this disease. 

New York City is the HIV epicenter; over 10% of the entire U.S. population 

are here within the city. Today there are 120,000 people living here, 42% are 

over age 50 and 75% over age 40. 

This is a map that I generated of the U.S. just to show you the percent of 

people living with HIV over age 50. Just a quick glance at the map will show 

you that those in red and purple account for more than half of the states in the 

Union and this process is occurring in every single locality across the U.S.A., 

not just the big cities. 

What else is happening? Well, first of all it’s happening, as was mentioned, 

because we have drugs that effectively block the ability of the virus to knock 

out the immune system. So the overwhelming majority of people who are 

older today, over age 50, were really infected many years ago or at least 

before they were age 50. 

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We should remember that one-sixth today, one-sixth, knew HIV infections 

occurred in people over age 50 and that why do these infections occur? And 

there are many reasons but one of them is that there has never been prevention 

efforts targeted at this population. 

There have always been older adults infected over age 50 but no one’s ever 

really, if you will, bothered or take notice of this population and developed 

efforts to educate them and those who provide them services. 

Now ACRIA funded back in 2004 and since, studies on this population and I 

appreciate their trust in myself and others in making these judgments. What 

we wanted to know is who are these people. They’re not just people with HIV 

and older. There’s something else about this population that we thought we 

should know and that others should know. 

So we developed a research initiative called ROAH and it included 1000 New 

York City older adults over age 50 and I want to also mention my colleague, 

Mark Brennan, who is a long-term researcher in the aging world who works 

with me on this as well as others. 

ROAH is comprehensive. I can’t go over all the data here but we looked at 

everything including sexual behavior and substance use; never done before. 

We looked at the stress, we looked at religiousness, we looked at loneliness, 

we looked at many factors. A book we published last year, which is datadriven, and it goes over all these topics, there are many papers and press and 

presentations that have come from this work. 

Just a quick example of a population; this is in New York City but it’s 

reflected across the country, 30% of the population are female, the rest male 

and this virus today as we all know, largely effects the communities of color. 

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I also want to note that this is not a very old population. Their average age is 

around 55 to 60. They’re getting older which is a good thing but in many 

respects these are not seniors. Some are but today we’re talking about older 

adults. 

If you look at how these folks identify, how they perceive themselves, you can 

see about 25% is homosexual, 10% bisexual and the rest is heterosexual. This 

does not define behavior but this is how they perceive themselves and how 

others perceive them. 

Where do they get care; 83% of these participants rely upon Medicaid and 

only about 20% get it from a private physician. This is true not only in New 

York but across the U.S. 

This the most important slide if you want to take home a message. Seventy 

percent of this population lives alone and only 15%, 14%, have a partner or 

spouse. This slide defines the isolation and the social estrangement that has 

occurred because of stigma to this population and it defines or it underlies 

many of the needs that they have. 

Stigma - I believe stigma today is worse than it was back in the ’80s and it 

was pretty bad then. This is just a sample and we said, who do you tell that 

you’re positive, HIV positive? And you can see they tell healthcare workers, 

not all. They don’t tell their chiropodists. And when we go down the line we’ll 

find that within their congregations they’re least likely to disclose which is 

really sad because frequently for the African America and Hispanic 

communities, the church, the congregation is a cultural touchstone. 

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Here’s some good examples of substance use. Fifty-seven percent of our 

sample smoke. That’s an extraordinarily high number. I believe in New York 

City it’s about 22%. If we look at other phenomena, if we look at the recovery 

process because as anyone knows anything about recovery we know there are 

life-changing events and are critical to their health, the number of people 

involved in recovery programs is huge. This speaks to the substance use issue. 

Depression; okay. If you look at the levels of depression on the right side in 

ROAH, what we see in the standardized community and we look at people 

visually impaired - these are people who have macular degeneration - you’ll 

see the depression rates are extremely high and that’s disturbing, even five 

times as high. 

Why is it important? Well, depression is the single most valid predictor of 

non-adherence to medication, not just HIV but all medications. And what’s 

perplexing is that these are folks who are in care and yet their depression is 

not being well managed and therefore their health outcomes are seriously 

compromised. 

I just want to allude to a study we began in ACRIA where we took the 

MacArthur Model and that model’s based upon, if you will, a song, okay? 

Bette Midler sings a song, Hello in There. It’s based upon making a single 

phone call a week to people who are depressed. And if you look at this line 

you can see how their depression scores declined. It doesn’t have to be 

expensive; it just has to show some connection to another human being to 

facilitate a recovery. 

The complications of success; as was mentioned by Kathy Greenlee, we have 

come a long way. People are living longer. It is remarkable that we would 

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even sit here today and talk about older adults and HIV. But we’ve kind of hit 

another wall. This epidemic never changes enough to let us go. 

But older adults are developing many of the aging-associated illnesses at an 

early stage in life. So for example at age 55 to 60 we’re watching people 

develop multiple cancers, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, liver and 

kidney (use) and diabetes to mention a few. This is a pattern that you would 

not see until you were looking at folks who are 75, 80 years old. This is a new 

challenge. 

This is a listing of the comorbidities that they report and this is a summary so 

they have in ROAH, 3.3 - we have three comorbidities per person whereas the 

older person because the issues on the right are 55, they only have about 1. 

This is a remarkable change. 

Also if you look at the death rates, most people with HIV/AIDS in this 

country do not die of HIV/AIDS, they die of other things. 

So at the American Academy of HIV Medicine joined with the American 

Geriatric Society and ACRIA to develop a listing or a number of guides to 

guide clinicians and clients in how to manage this new challenge. And this 

challenge is defined as a multi morbidity care management. 

This has been largely the domain of the Geriatric Medicine but imagine here 

you have a client who can present with HIV and any number of these 

comorbidities against the background of mental health issues and social 

isolation. It’s a challenge. 

I want to talk about caregivers. Caregiving is a $400 billion annual part of the 

healthcare budget which no one really talks about because they’re not seeing it 

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in real dollars. Our research has for the last many years shown that this 

population doesn’t have good social networks. 

We know they have parents, children, siblings, friends, whatever in the social 

network but when we look at their functionality they need to rely upon them 

for everything from a daily care issue to emotional support. 

We find that only friends remain functional but sadly, of those friends half are 

HIV positive and half don’t even know the other half has HIV. It’s a fragile 

(unintelligible). Why is this important to us? Well, we’ve already begun 

working with - we actually just published a paper to show that because they 

don’t have a good social network, which are an important part of aging well 

successfully, they therefore turn to more formal services in large numbers. 

And that already they were entering long-term healthcare facilities at a very 

young age and at a very high cost. 

So here’s the end. There is life after 50, there is as we are reminded by 

researchers, some of the work by (Dr. Lindale) as well as AARP who’s been 

very supportive on this in fact, that people have sex, have sexual desires till 

they can’t have it anymore. This is - everybody knows this but doesn’t want to 

acknowledge it. 

So that, as I mentioned before, one in every six of new diagnoses in the U.S. is 

in a person age 50 and over. Why does this happen? I think Doreen and some 

of our other participants today are going to discuss this in more detail but most 

of it is a lack of awareness that you are at risk. Everyone is at risk no matter 

what age and there have been no tailored interventions aimed at this 

population and those that provide services to them. 

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This is a map of the U.S. This shows the percent of new infections in each 

state over age 50 and once again if you look at the red and purple you can see 

that more than half of the states have fairly high rates of this infection rate. 

Also I want to mention that an analysis of their sexual behavior we found out 

that substance use, mostly alcohol, does effect judgment and that’s when they 

have unsafe sex, that the use of Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs 

does not cause them to be more involved in more risky behavior if they do 

have more sex. 

And then about 16% of this population, these are the folks that carry the virus, 

do have unsafe sex in the last three months. 

The New York City council, to their credit and we thank them, responded to 

our research and in 2007 began funding an initiative here in New York City 

which will ACRIA has led with other partners including SAGE who’s online 

today to begin to address this issue. 

The core of this effort is really premised on the fact that we need to partner 

with those who provide services to the older adults community. HIV, AIDS 

service organizations cannot do this alone. They’re not sold up; they don’t 

have any experience to deal with an older population so in order to provide 

services for this aging population we have begun to hold hands, to create 

dialogue and to come together. 

There’s a challenge, sometimes it’s a little harder than other times but 

nonetheless it happens. It certainly has happened in this city. 

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One of the efforts of ACRIA is to develop materials that are specific to the 

older HIV population and to older adults in general. This is just a sample of 

those we hear, there are many more. There are training DVDs, et cetera. 

But when we present these and we take them to, especially our educators, 

conferences and to trainings it’s amazing how much people do appreciate this. 

We’ve trained over 8000 staff in 18 service providers. We’ve trained in every 

one of our city council districts and we’ve also trained across the country. 

We’ve done 75 organizations across the U.S.A. and it’s amazing how many 

call back and want further training. 

And lastly this month we launched a very widespread large social messaging 

campaign where over 250 of our bus, kiosk bus waiting stations have been 

fitted with these - this is a sampling of the posters - and you’ll note the big 

word sex and that little phrase down there, age is not a condom. 

I think that’s kind of a good way to look end this and to say thank you. If you 

need any help in research or particularly as regards to materials and training 

please contact us. Thank you. 

Danielle Nelson: Thank you very much, Steve. We appreciate you being here with us. I would 

like now to introduce our second presenter, Ms. Jane Fowler who’ll be 

offering a personal perspective. A retired journalist, she currently devotes her 

time and energies to HIV age prevention and education. 

After becoming an activist and public speaker in 1995, Jane co-founded the 

National Association of HIV Over 50, known as NAHOF. In late 2010 Pause 

Magazine named her one of the most 100 powerful, influential and 

inspirational people working in an HIV/AIDS field in America today. 

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Jane, I’d like to pass it on to you. 

Jane Fowler: Thank you very much. A frosty Friday morning in New York in January of 

1974 I sat in the Rockefeller Center office of Barbara Walters, then co-anchor 

of NBC’s Today show. I was there as a member of the Kansas City Star’s 

news staff to interview her for a story that would appear later in my 

newspaper. 

I was 38 years old, an enthusiastic young career woman; proud also to be a 

wife and mother. Fast forward through the years. On a nocturnal Friday night 

in Kansas City, Missouri, in October 1998 I sat in my urban apartment in front 

of my television watching and listening to Barbara Walters, then on ABC’s 

20/20 News Magazine. 

From her host chair Barbara introduced a segment, safe sex in seniors, in 

which I would appear. I was 63 years old, still a proud mother but now 

divorced and my life course and work had changed. After more than 30 years 

as a print journalist I found myself in a role reversal. No longer an 

interviewer, I had become the interviewee, answering questions instead of 

asking them. 

I am currently a spokesperson for a health cause that we all know is not chic 

but stigmatized. In the addition of 20/20 in which I figured, Barbara 

confirmed what we HIV activists already knew. That it is imperative to dispel 

the myth that adults over 50 or 60 or 70 don’t have sex and therefore are not at 

risk for sexually transmitted diseases. 

Yet now in 2011, having given hundreds of public speeches and scores of 

media interviews over the past 16 years, I continue to be amazed by the 

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response of the general population, even healthcare clinicians and providers of 

aging services. 

How can old people be at risk, they ask, because this is a sexually transmitted 

disease. To this, yes they can be at risk. The good news is that many persons 

in the aging population do still enjoy a good romp but the bad news is that too 

many don’t realize they must not have unprotected sex unless the couple is in 

a mutually monogamous relationship in which neither partner is STDinfected. 

I don’t pretend to have adopted this role of HIV prevention educator out of the 

goodness of my heart. No, at present I’d rather be fully retired spending time 

exclusively with my 7-year-old grandson, (Milo), and my 5-year-old 

granddaughter, (Matilda). They are a pair precious to me. 

So why do I do this work? Because I know the topic intimately because I 

learned from a health insurance company blood test in 1991 at age 55 the 

surprising devastating news that I am HIV positive. 

My immediate response was to retreat from my 30-year journalism career and 

tell only my family including my octogenarian parents and a small circle of 

close friends who were supportive and compassionate. For four years I lived 

in semi-isolation until my only child, my then 31-year-old son, (Steven), 

proposed; you’re positive, then do something positive. 

Thus I was empowered to embark on a new career as a public speaker, to 

stand up and say look at this old, white, wrinkled, heterosexual face. This is 

another face of HIV. It’s not who you are or how old you are but what you do 

or don’t do that leads to transmission of the virus. 

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Since 1995 I’ve been out on the speaker’s circuit sharing my story of having 

lived a traditional conventional lifestyle. I was a 1950’s good girl, little booze, 

no recreational drugs, a virgin on my wedding night at the end of that decade. 

Naturally being a good girl I was monogamous for 23 years of marriage, a 

marriage that ended when my now ex-husband requested a divorce in order to 

marry his much, much, much younger paramour. What happened next is that I 

found myself dating again for the first time in a quarter century. I didn’t 

consider myself promiscuous. I didn’t frequent the singles bars. I went out 

with men my age who, like me, had been married and were divorced. 

A man I saw frequently, an attractive, intelligent, amusing man of many 

interests had been a good friend my entire adult life, a former coworker who’d 

been an usher in my wedding party. He married after I did and divorced 

before I did and because I knew I couldn’t become pregnant it didn’t occur to 

me to ask that protection be used when we engaged in occasional sexual 

activity. 

I knew little about HIV/AIDS, only that a mysterious ailment was affecting 

the gay community. What did we heterosexuals have to fear? But at age 50 I 

contracted the virus. It happened over a New Year’s Eve when my friend and 

I went out of town to celebrate. We dined, we danced, we drank a little 

champagne and we had sex. 

How can I be so certain of the date? Because of research I did after I received 

my diagnosis in January, 1991, I read up on HIV. I studied my day at a glance 

datebooks, kept yearly since 1958. They’re like diaries. And I reviewed 

medical records in my physician’s office. In this manner I was able to 

establish the exact date of infection. 

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Today, 24 years after that infection, 20 after diagnosis, 16 after going public I 

spend countless hours endeavoring to raise awareness in the aging community 

and just as importantly, among its medical and social service providers about 

HIV in this age group. 

I felt an even greater need for me to point out potential risks when I read a 

Wall Street Journal report that the number of single persons ages 55 to 64 had 

increased by 1.5 million in a four-year period. The newspaper article went on 

to say that the 50-plus crowd represents one of the fastest growing segments 

of the U.S. dating services industry. 

I thought wow; I really do need to reach, in particular, women who are 

widowed, divorced or coming out of long relationships that have left them 

vulnerable or depressed, needy or naïve, seeking love and affection. 

Today I am 75 years old and grateful to be blessed with good health, to never 

have progressed to AIDS. Since the introduction of what’s known as highly 

active anti-retroviral therapy, HAART, my HIV has been kept in check. 

Within two months of beginning those medications 15 years ago the tests that 

checks the amount of virus in a person’s blood indicated I was in the 

“undetectable” range and I have consistently remained undetectable for which 

I am grateful. 

But most of us who are older and living with HIV or AIDS are for the most 

part ignored and isolated, fearful to admit to our situations and we face a 

double stigma; the stigma of having a virus that is contracted sexually or 

through injected drug use and the stigma of ageism. 

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After all, common thinking is that Grandma or Grandpa should not have been 

out there screwing around or shooting up. Here is an example, a personal 

example, of ageism that I can share. 

I once had a young anesthesiologist ask me in a pre-op room where I was 

awaiting minor surgery about how my body reacts to blood transfusions. Well, 

I don’t know, I answered, confused because I’ve never had a transfusion. But 

you have HIV, he countered. I told that young man, you’re looking at an old 

lady who got HIV through sex, so there. 

Thus I remain passionate about my mission, to make certain that seniors and 

their families, their providers and caregivers understand how HIV is 

transmitted and prevented. 

I remind everyone, you never know the sexual history of anybody but 

yourself. I also like to tell older males who may find themselves suddenly 

especially frisky thanks to those performance-enhancing drugs, and now if 

you can get it up, cover it up. 

My work as an activist brings me fulfillment as none has before. My years as 

a journalist, meeting people, seeing my byline weekly in the Kansas City Star, 

then monthly in Bon Appetit Magazine; those were heady years for me. Now 

more than at any point in my life I like to think I’m making a kind of 

contribution to the health of mankind. 

Yes, I keep busy with my work for HIV Wisdom for Older Women, a national 

program I founded nine years ago. It’s a program of prevention and care 

directed to aging women of all racial and socioeconomic groups. 

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For example elder females may not realize that seeing a physician for a 

routine checkup does not insure that an HIV test will be automatically 

included in a blood screening. That’s right, women may need to request that 

test and why? Because providers for the most part continue to omit the topic 

of sexuality when dealing with seniors, especially women. 

We hear this is commonplace because young to mid-age clinicians often are 

reluctant to talk about sex with patients or clients who are old enough to be 

their parents or grandparents. This however is a practice that must be reversed 

and if reversed there might be fewer misdiagnoses of old people who are in 

fact HIV infected. 

These occur because HIV symptoms can be similar to those associated with 

aging. Think weakened immune system, weight loss, fatigue, respiratory or GI 

problems, depression, decreased cognitive or physical abilities. The result can 

be that HIV is not uncovered until after a patient has become ill with an 

AIDS-defining opportunistic infection. Thus elder people die sooner from 

AIDS complications than do the young. 

My role as an educator, I never ask for sympathy or pity because I have HIV. 

Of course I regret that two decades ago I wasn’t knowledgeable about this 

disease and became infected but I live with this virus as others live with 

cancer, ALS, Parkinson’s, AMS, congestive heart failure, any potentially 

terminal disease. 

Yes, I have HIV but I do not allow it to control my life. My work gives me 

direction and I also rely on welcome emotional support from family and 

friends who offer distractions that keep me from obsessing about my virus. 

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What I ask is anyone who hears or reads my words is to remember my 

message. Many in the older set are becoming newly infected while others are 

living and aging with HIV/AIDS. Please help me in my efforts to educate so 

that someday we may rejoice together that this virus has at last been 

eradicated. Thank you. 

Danielle Nelson: Jane, thank you so much for sharing your story. We are privileged to have you 

on this Webinar with us today. I want to share; Jane was a panelist on a video. 

It’s an excellent video that talks about HIV in Middle Age and if you’d like to 

get a free copy of this episode you can request a DVD of the program, HIV in 

Middle Age, by sending an email to (Karen Heller) who manages the 

program. Her email is listed there. And send her your mailing address. 

So moving on I’d like to introduce our next presenter, Doreen Bermudez who 

serves as the national training coordinator of the National Resource Center on 

LGBT Aging. 

This historic research center, the first federally funded center of its kind in the 

country, provides critical information and tools for aging providers, LGBT 

organizations, LGBT older adults and their loved ones. 

Bermudez was previously the lead trainer for services and advocacy for 

GLBT Elders, known as SAGE, the world’s largest and oldest organization 

dedicated to improving the lives of LGBT older adults. 

Bermudez holds a degree in education and Latin American studies. Prior to 

her work at SAGE she was a consultant for the Puerto Rican Family Institute 

and Company on HIV services. 

 Doreen, welcome. 

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Doreen Bermudez: Thank you and thank you to my colleagues who are also in this call. I am 

delighted to be here. 

The National Resource Center on LGBT Aging is the only technical 

assistance resource aimed at improving the quality of services and support 

offered to Lesbian, Gay, bisexual and transgender older adults. 

The LGBT community is no stranger to HIV and AIDS and addressing the 

needs of LGBT older people in this epidemic. If we take a look back 30 years 

ago an LGBT older person now was probably attending a funeral once a week 

for a few years. Those are alarming numbers when you look now after 30 

years of this epidemic. 

Where do we find older adults and how do we combine the research, the data 

and how do we go into communities and implement, create, develop 

programming addressing the unique needs in the older adult community. 

How do we gain access to service providers and how do we help them 

enhance their services to create inclusivity addressing the needs of the older 

adult person that is HIV positive and addressing prevention initiatives in this 

community? 

Creating, we have created as an example Dr. Stephen Karpiak talked about 

New York City being the epicenter of HIV and AIDS. We have created a 

realistic structure promoting the inclusion of HIV conversations that have 

been challenging for many of us here working in the HIV field and let me tell 

you why. 

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Due to limited resources many organizations despite their efforts and despite 

their interest to be inclusive to create and implement an HIV conversation 

addressing the needs of older adults, are not able to due to limited resources. 

Therefore we have been forced to become innovative and to implement 

initiatives that are non-traditional and inclusive of HIV in older adults. 

And we have started very simple, just creating environments that are inclusive 

by going to where older adults are. The reality is that not all older adults are in 

senior centers. Many of our older adults in the community, they are working 

or they are involved to civic engagements. Therefore we have become 

innovative in going to this setting and addressing everyone and adjusting the 

content of our program according to the needs where your particular 

organization is. 

Let me give you an example. We have found in our experience that many 

service providers are using limited language when addressing older adults in 

regards to their sexual history, making assumptions that an older woman past 

her 50s or her 60s is less sexually active. Those are challenges that we need to 

address as service providers in the aging network. 

Older adults at times may feel alienated and marginalized and this is inclusive 

but not only the exception in the LGBT community. Service providers need to 

start having conversations of being inclusive in addressing the needs of older 

adults in HIV and to other respects in terms of their aging and ageism within 

their own settings. 

Okay, we take that and we include what of minority stress and how that plays 

a role in the HIV and aging network. When you have a person that is older 

and they are dealing with aging-related issues, at the same time if this person 

is part of a community that is underserved - as an example, if that person is a 

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gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender person that is an added stress to their aging 

process. 

And how those issues are being addressed by service providers at times we 

find that they are not directly referring to those issues and that creates a 

limitation to the way that we provide services and the quality of services that 

we want to offer and extend to that older person. 

Language can be a barrier and also consistency of programming. So those that 

work in not-for-profit sectors at times consistency is a big issue in addressing 

the HIV aging community due to lack of resources and continuity of funding. 

Some of the risk factors that in our experience working with HIV in older 

adults are not addressing sexuality and assuming that an older person is not 

sexually active. In many cases not having a plan that can be implemented 

consistently within organizations that could capture data and evaluation for us 

to know the impact that we have had as service providers addressing this 

community. 

In closing, the aging community in not only New York City but across the 

country is being faced with many challenges. People are aging and they are 

dealing with other health-related issues. We need to incorporate HIV into the 

aging conversation. 

It is a disservice to the community in the United States, particularly in the 

aging community, not to address HIV, not to ask the questions that will be 

able to open the doors to us service providers to find the information to better 

serve our individuals within our own organizations. 

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This is an invitation to start that conversation. This is an invitation to everyone 

at the table to be inclusive of the HIV conversation to ask and to be able to 

address our older adult community in better ways and to serve them better. 

 Thank you. 

Danielle Nelson: Thank you, Doreen. We appreciate you speaking today. Last but not least we 

have Mr. (Courtney Williams) who is a community planner for the D.C. 

Office on Aging in the District of Columbia. He has been with the office for 

over 20 years. His extensive experience with the D.C. Office on Aging 

includes the development, evaluation and implementation of studies, reports 

and special projects related to the local aging population. 

He has spearheaded policy and planning issues dealing with the issue of HIV 

in older adults since the late 1990s. He previously served as a board member 

of the National Association of HIV Over 50 as well as organized two local 

conferences on HIV and seniors. 

 (Courtney), I’d like to pass it over to you. 

(Courtney Williams): Okay, thank you. We had a wonderful discussion today from all our 

speakers. The Triple-A’s, the Triple-A’s very important to older adults 

whatever because it’s a way that they access service and provides a lot of 

information and assistance to older people in need of services. 

As we well know, the Triple-A solicits and contracts with private vendors for 

services, administer and reimburse funding, monitor programs and provide 

coordination of services and resources for persons over 60. 

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The Triple-A’s Area Agencies on Aging existed long before there was HIV so 

there’s already a system set in place. Over the last year we developed an aging 

service network - an HIV service network but before that we had an aging 

service network which in the services now provided by the HIV service 

network are very similar to what the Triple-A’s do now. 

Now working with a Triple-A there’s few things that I notice and things that I 

recommended for us to move forward in addressing the needs of our older 

population as this issue begins to impact them. 

One of the issues always is how do we make the connection between our HIV 

and our service provider network. In most places, not all but some places there 

are two separate service systems and they don’t talk to each other. They don’t 

interconnect. 

What I’ve tried to do over the last 15, 20 years is make the connections. I had 

some discussions between the two different service networks. In some cases 

even in our service system you have an organization that will provide new 

services for seniors but they’re also providing HIV services also and they’re 

two separate parts that don’t talk to each other. 

Now we’ve had two conferences dealing with HIV in older adults and the idea 

was to bring the two service networks together. The HIV service network has 

never talked with the aging service network. 

As we see the numbers increase we get a lot of calls now from HIV service 

organization asking for our assistance in helping older clients. In the District 

of Columbia we’ve dealt with persons living with HIV and AIDS as old as 92 

years old and we had a significant number of ones in their 70s. 

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We have been working and partnering with other agencies in HIV. We go to 

them and we try to advocate on behalf of the older population. 

Now we recognize that the largest number right now currently of older adults 

is now in the 50 to 59 year range but eventually they’re going to mature past 

that and they’ll be eligible for our senior service network which starts at the 

age of 60. 

Now we always have to warn them, what impact is that going to have on our 

service delivery as we stand now because you’re eligible for two different 

service systems now. So what has happened is that we actually now begin to 

get persons who have gotten older with HIV but now need our help in terms 

of services. 

I just had a situation over the weekend with our social workers is that because 

of the extreme heat the fire and EMS went into a home of an older person and 

discovered that this person is not only receiving services from the HIV 

community but also receiving services from the aging community and we 

have two service systems that didn’t even know that we were both providing 

similar services. 

Some services she was receiving from HIV services because she’s matured 

into that. She started receiving HIV services when she was in her 50s; now 

she’s in her 60s; now she’s accessing our service system. 

Also some of the other things that we’re also looking at is how to provide 

ongoing training for our social workers in our network on learning more and 

more about HIV. One thing I want to talk about now is probably about since 

we had these two conferences, what have we learned? 

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We’ve come out with a series of recommendations to present to our health 

department since our health department has the lead on dealing with HIV and 

aging issues. So what we did, we came out with a series of recommendations 

for the city to enact to better provide support and services for persons living 

with HIV. 

One of them, we wanted the health department is to start providing HIV 

prevention messages for seniors including, also make sure that they included 

new material brochures, pamphlet depicting older people who are effected by 

HIV. 

Also making sure that this information is available at all of our special events 

and also at their special events too, health fairs. What we also require now 

when we do city-wide events for seniors and we do health screenings; it’s part 

of our health screenings that we must have an HIV health screening at our 

special events. 

Also we’re looking at how, we have talked with the health department about 

the possibility of doing condom distribution at our senior wellness centers. 

Wellness centers are places where seniors, we have five in the city where 

seniors go for exercise I would consider like a Gold’s Gym for seniors 

because they do a lot of different things there. 

So we also want to develop a curriculum for volunteers and also for our 

network and also trying to teach other seniors and also other people that they 

come in contact about HIV. 

It’s so many different, I have like 30 different recommendations but those are 

some of the key ones. One thing we’re trying to do is trying to get the health 

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department to understand that this epidemic is here, 3% of the population in 

D.C. is HIV-positive in D.C. so that would be considered an epidemic here. 

So we want to try to get them to consider HIV of seniors as an emerging 

population for HIV infection and as evident by the growing numbers. We can 

show the numbers, how the numbers are growing as people get older. 

The face of HIV at 30 is aging as you can see. Are we prepared for the next 30 

years and that’s something that we have to look at as an Area Agency on 

Aging. What impact will older people aging will have on our service delivery 

and are we prepared for that? 

I think I want to open it up for questions now, okay? 

Danielle Nelson: Wonderful. Thank you, (Courtney). I appreciate you speaking. I wanted to 

move to the next slide to show the resources available from each speaker’s 

agency Web site. And again this PowerPoint will be posted on AOA’s Web 

site. 

We have had several questions come in through the chat but I’d first like to 

turn things over to (Fran), our operator, to open the audio lines to queue up 

our questions from the phone lines. 

Coordinator: Thank you so much. If you’d like to ask a question over the phone lines please 

press star then 1. Please unmute your phone and record your name. That will 

be needed so you know when your line is open. 

So again on the phone lines press star then 1 if you might have a request. 

Thank you very much. 

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Danielle Nelson: All right. And our first question in chat is for Steve and that question is, does 

ACRIA plan to make a presentation or poster at the upcoming International 

AIDS Conference in D.C.? 

Stephen Karpiak: We certainly do. In fact we presented the first satellite meeting on HIV in 

Aging at the past meetings on HIV and Aging in Vienna. So as the issue 

grows, so does our work so absolutely. 

Danielle Nelson: Wonderful. Our next question has come in and that question is, and it’s 

whoever of the speakers would like to take it; what are the critical needs of 

older adults for HIV prevention and education or HIV care? Is HIV prevention 

and awareness issue among gay male seniors the same as is it different for 

non-gay seniors? 

Who would like to take it? 

Doreen Bermudez: Doreen will take it. Thank you for your question. The HIV prevention and 

education messages across the board for both gay male seniors or non-gay 

seniors is the same one. When we do prevention education we talk about how 

to be protected whether you are gay or not. 

So that message is basically the same however critical needs of older adults 

are different from the younger community and that is because older adults are 

also dealing with aging issues and other critical illnesses that come with age. 

So we have to be very careful when we talk about HIV prevention and how do 

we incorporate and integrate the aging conversation and education within the 

HIV component. 

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Danielle Nelson: Great. Thank you, Doreen. We have another question that’s come in through 

chat and this question is for Jane. Jane, the CDC recommends HIV testing for 

people of ages 13 to 64 during regular blood screening. What do you think it 

should be and how should older adults over the age of 64 approach this testing 

with their physician? 

Jane Fowler: Well, I think it should certainly, the age should be... 

Danielle Nelson: Jane, could you speak up just a little? 

Jane Fowler: Yes, I’m sorry. The age should certainly be higher than 64 I believe. A lot of 

us do. We were surprised at the recommendation from the CDC. We know it’s 

not a mandate but it’s a recommendation. 

If a person thinks there’s a need for a test and I personally think it wouldn’t 

hurt if everyone had a test, then the person - the patient/client visiting a 

provider should request the test. It’s just not going to be automatically offered 

as part of a blood screening if you’re over 64. If you’re under 64 it will be. 

Again it’s not mandated, it’s recommended but if it is recommended and for 

some reason if a woman or man say at age 60 doesn’t want the HIV test 

included in the blood screening, he or she can opt out. 

Danielle Nelson: Great. Thank you, Jane. That is all the questions we have from chat at this 

time. You can continue to send them through the chat function but now we’ll 

go to (Fran) for our audio questions. 

Coordinator: Again thank you. Our first request over the phone lines from (Dale Mitchel). 

Your line is now open. 

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(Dale Mitchel): Yes, hi. I was particularly struck by the first presenter who said that there had 

been no prevention education targeting older adults while at the same time it’s 

a significant age cohort for new infections. 

And it occurs to me that AOA itself could be an important transmitter of safe 

sex education for the elderly population. Title III of the Elder Americans, 

Older Americans Act funds a whole plethora of services including congregate 

meal sites all around the country which could be vehicles, very effective 

vehicles I would imagine for safe sex education for older people. 

I’m just wondering how the panelists feel about the federal government and 

particularly the Administration on Aging taking a more forceful and 

interventionist role in this area. 

(Courtney Williams): This is (Courtney) with the Office on Aging. Since I actually do work for 

Area Agencies on Aging and we do interact with the Administration on 

Aging, I’m of the opinion that, you know, they could do more and one of the 

things they could do is, they could do more funding, special project funding 

for initiatives that maybe a Triple-A might want to undertake for education. 

But also right now since you do have the congregate meal sites and you’re 

supposed to provide activities we encourage our providers and we work with 

them to make sure that they do HIV education at the senior centers, whatever, 

and it’s important to have someone in a lot of cases in here in Washington 

we’ve been blessed to have people who look like them who can go out and 

talk to them about HIV. 

It’s the easier thing for them to deal with to better understand if they see 

someone who looks like them. The only challenge, the big challenge is that 

we have now we really don’t have a lot of good materials that we can hand, to 

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give to people. We can have people go out there and talk to them but we also 

need to kind of reinforce that you are affected or infected by HIV particularly 

in this city. 

(Greg Case): (Bill), this is (Greg Case) with the Administration on Aging and let me just 

take a minute to try and answer your question as well. 

While we don’t have any funds in the Older Americans Act dedicated 

specifically to the use of HIV in Aging outreach and programming, the Title 

III-B dollars can be used for that kind of purpose and we have done a number 

of things over the years to encourage Area Agencies on Aging like in D.C. but 

there are a number across the country that have engaged in activities around 

HIV and older adults both prevention and treatment. 

We have not had any discretionary opportunities for HIV in Aging but as you 

probably know, the discretionary funds that we’ve gotten in recent years have 

been very limited and have made it difficult for us to do that. So we appreciate 

the comment and will appreciate any assistance that any advocates out there 

can give us in helping us to secure dedicated funding that we could direct 

directly do activities around HIV and AIDS. 

(Courtney Williams): This is also (Courtney) again, is that I think the area agencies on aging 

should look at actually applying for some of these around (unintelligible) 

planning grants and also as they get more involved in it, they can advocate 

that the agencies that provide funding for HIV services fund Area Agencies of 

senior programs to address this issue. 

But there is some funding out there, it’s just a matter of what we’ve done here 

in the Office on Aging, we have partnered, we’ve given letters of supports and 

we also have partnered with non-profit organizations that’s providing services, 

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HIV services, to say that we will give them access to our senior programs and 

also assist them in providing training for our case managers and social 

workers because there is funding out there. It’s just you have to be a little 

innovative. As Doreen said, you have to be a little bit innovative and creative. 

One thing we did is that we worked with one of our sites to do a senior AIDS 

education quilt. We had seniors do a big quilt and at the same time they were 

educating themselves. 

Or to hold workshops about dating over 60; seniors will come to a workshop 

that says dating over 60. They most times won’t come to a workshop that says 

HIV and seniors so you have to be a little creative in the way you approach 

seniors and also even how you deal with the churches here. 

Danielle Nelson: Thank you, (Courtney). (Fran), do we have another audio question? 

Coordinator: Yes, we have a few. Now (Mary Hurlburt), your line is open, ma’am. 

(Mary Hurlburt): Thank you. Actually I do work with the Area Office on Aging in Ohio but I 

have been a 15-year researcher for HIV in seniors. I have to agree; we have 

seniors which I am one now, do the best going out talking to groups. 

But we have a very proactive state here for volunteers and community 

services but as they were saying, very little funding is available anymore. My 

biggest thing though and Jane already answered this as the recommendation. 

We all were just absolutely floored when CDC came up just to 64. 

I’m going to add a little bit more than that. We that are in the HIV prevention 

community here are also trying to get that as part of routine health assessment 

for any age and then opting out, as she said. 

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Unfortunately I know in Ohio there’s state laws as was probably every state 

has different laws referring to this, you know, what they can and can’t do. So 

anyways I just - since I was already on when Jane talked it was, you know, 

she’s the one that started me researching this actually 15 years ago when I was 

working on my under-grad so thank you. 

Danielle Nelson: (Fran), do you want to take the next question? 

Coordinator: Of course. As a reminder, star then 1 if you might have a request and my last 

at this time from (Stephanie Bates), your line is open. 

(Stephanie Bates): Hi. I’m actually with an Area Agency on Aging in a rural county in Western 

New York and I have two questions. The first one is, do you know where I 

can find statistics by counties in New York by age of HIV diagnoses, AIDS 

diagnoses? 

The other question I have is, there’s a big push in New York State for the 

chronic disease self-management program out of Stamford. Have there been 

any discussion with that group to speak specifically to living with HIV and 

AIDS and implementing that in their curriculum or maybe having a separate 

curriculum focused primarily on HIV and AIDS? 

Stephen Karpiak: This is Steve. Being from New York I think if you’re going to go down to the 

county level you’d have a problem finding that kind of (unintelligible) data 

although it can be requested. 

And I don’t know of any contact with the chronic disease management group 

you mentioned although it’s going to be necessary because really managing 

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multiple chronic diseases is going to be the challenge of the healthcare 

profession. 

(Greg Case): In terms of the chronic disease self-management program, (Stephanie), we’ll 

follow up on that. We’re not certain if there’s been anything specific to that or 

not. We see no reason why people living with HIV as another chronic illness 

can’t participate in chronic disease self-management programs but whether or 

not there’s been any specific work in that area, we’re going to look into it. 

And if you will just email Danielle Nelson whose email address will be given 

in the very last slide of this presentation so that we know how to get a hold of 

you, we’ll be back in touch about that. 

(Stephanie Bates): Great. Thank you. They have a separate program for diabetes so, you know 

more support programs specifically around that so I didn’t know if they 

wanted to do the same type thing with HIV and AIDS or include it which it 

should be included with the group as a whole as well. 

Danielle Nelson: All right and we have a question that’s coming from chat for Steve. It says I 

do research regarding adherence to HAART. Earlier you said that those who 

take HAART successfully will not get AIDS. Did I hear this correctly? Is it 

safe for me to tell participants in a (unintelligible) intervention that they will 

not get AIDS or is it better to say that it will slow the progression? 

Stephen Karpiak: If they’re adherent and they haven’t had an AIDS diagnosis already they 

should not progress to AIDS. The treatments are very effective as long as 

folks as adherent. 

Danielle Nelson: And we have another question. This is for any of the presenters who would 

like to take it. Is AARP helping to prevent HIV among seniors? Is it 

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advocating for increased funding of HIV prevention programs for seniors? 

Does anybody know? 

Stephen Karpiak: This is Steve. I can speak to that. They’ve been actually very supporting. 

They’ve had a series of articles and a major article in their last magazine and 

has just launched a portal which probably Doreen can speak to more about 

aging and HIV in the elderly community. They’ve certainly been an ally. 

(Courtney Williams): Yeah, they put out one of the first videos dealing with HIV in older adults 

over 10 years ago. They call it, It Could Happen To Me. And also they did a 

manual on HIV and its impact on older women so they have done some things 

in HIV. 

Doreen Bermudez: Yes and yes absolutely (unintelligible). AARP’s been very supportive of 

the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender older adult community, just recently 

launched a portal addressing the needs of this community. 

We look forward to their continued support and again integrating the 

conversation of HIV in Aging. 

Jane Fowler: AARP will be publishing some brief profiles and pictures in its next issue 

which would be I think July/August about the 30th anniversary of HIV/AIDS 

in this country in older people. 

Danielle Nelson: Great information. (Fran), do you have any questions from the audio lines? 

Coordinator: Yes, I do. (Hope Barrett), your line is open, ma’am. 

(Hope Barrett): Hello. I just wanted to put out there that (Center and Halstead) which is based 

in Chicago recently produced a video for older adults over 50. It’s an HIV 

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prevention documentary. It’s about 30 minutes long and profiles the lives of 

three LGBT older adults who are living in (unintelligible) with HIV. 

The film will be available shortly. We’re going to post it on our Web site. You 

can get a preview of it on YouTube if you enter Aging Positively and that’s 

spelled P-O-Z-I-T-I-V-E - how do you spell positively - yes, P-O-Z-I-T-I-VE-L-E. So I just wanted to put that out there that there’s an additional resource 

for folks to use in talking about older adults and HIV. 

Danielle Nelson: Thank you. We have another question that’s come in from chat. As the 

founding national leader for national HIV and AIDS in Aging Awareness 

Day, the (ACE) Institute encourages collaborative partnerships to address 

prevention, education and awareness regarding HIV in Aging. What success 

have any of the presenters had in working with other target groups and who 

would you recommend working with at the local level to implement activities 

on or around the September 18th event? 

Doreen Bermudez: Hi, this is Doreen. Some of the suggestions that I can give you in 

partnering with other organizations around this day is working with your local 

Triple-A but also the local senior centers and service providers that are 

uniquely to be all the adult community. 

It can be challenging in partnering and doing activities around addressing HIV 

and that is due to stigma and what I like to call what is the ripple effect on 

HIV and how older adults may perceive today what HIV is and how you are at 

risk. We should talk about the need to continue education around this topic. 

But definitely work with your local service providers, you know, within the 

aging network. And again it is just key of the consistency of programming and 

39 
Administration on Aging 

HIV and Aging Webinar 

June 14, 2011 

continuing and implementing the type of conversations and programs around 

HIV in older adults. 

 Thank you. 

Stephen Karpiak: This is Steve. I may mention also congregations, many congregations in 

certain communities - I know Baltimore especially but also here in New York 

- have begun to recognize this issue and that within their congregations, that 

seniors who are positive as well as not and who are at risk. And since the 

congregation’s a touchstone for these communities, I think they are willing to 

and will engage particularly those who have already gotten into the issues of 

prevention. 

(Courtney Williams): In D.C. we plan on having an event in September for HIV in Aging. What 

we plan to do is help the health department would have developed the 

materials that we can distribute out to the general public about HIV in older 

adults so that’s what we plan on doing on that particular day and also having 

an event at each one of our wellness centers around the city focusing on some 

aspect of HIV in older adults. 

Danielle Nelson: Great. (Fran), we’re ready for the next audio question. 

Coordinator: I have no further questions on the phone lines. 

Danielle Nelson: We have no further questions on chat. With that I would like to thank all of 

our presenters on today’s Webinar and also everyone that tuned in, we 

appreciate your time. If you have any additional question please feel free to 

email me. That’s danielle.nelson@aoa.hhs.gov. Again thank you and enjoy 

the rest of your day. 

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Administration on Aging 

HIV and Aging Webinar 

June 14, 2011 

41 

Stephen Karpiak: Thank you. 

Doreen Bermudez: Thank you. 

Jane Fowler: Thank you. 

END