NASTAD: The National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD) is a non-profit organization that represents public health directors who lead HIV programs across the United States. Their mission is to “advance the health and dignity of people living with and impacted by HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, and intersecting epidemics by strengthening governmental public health and leveraging community partnerships.”
The health departments that NASTAD represents are the centerpiece of the EHE initiative. Working in collaboration with diverse community partners, health departments led the development of local EHE plans, and they are now charged with implementing those plans, monitoring and evaluating EHE efforts, and refining plans in response to experience and evolving science. The EHE Initiative involves a wide spectrum of stakeholders, including health departments, persons living with HIV and at risk for HIV, community-based organizations, healthcare organizations, clinical providers, and others. But EHE cannot be successful if health departments fail in their central organizing function. In partnership with NASTAD, RAISE is working to expand interest, knowledge, and experience with IS methods and research in public health EHE programs. The NASTAD-RAISE platform aims to assess the needs of these health departments and provide tailored technical assistance to support successful implementation of EHE plans. Our first effort was to launch a structured needs assessment in Spring 2023 of the EHE jurisdiction health departments to understand their implementation science capacity. The team is using those data to inform the development of resources, workshops, and webinars. The NASTAD-RAISE platform also provides 1:1 consultations to health departments in EHE jurisdictions.
For more information about NASTAD’s EHE work, see here.
