The New England AIDS Education and Training Center, founded in 1988, is one of eight Regional Education Centers funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA) Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and is regionally sponsored by the Department of Family Medicine & Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The mission of NEAETC is to educate and train health care providers to diagnose, counsel, and care for people living with HIV/AIDS and promote HIV prevention.
- Connecticut
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- New Hampshire
- Rhode Island
- Vermont is served by the project.
NEAETC collaborates with community health centers, Ryan White affiliates, hospitals and medical centers, state and local health departments, AIDS service groups, medical, nursing, dentistry, and osteopathic schools, and other community agencies to provide programming.
- Nurses
- Nurse practitioners
- Physicians
- Physician assistants
- Social workers
- Dentists
And other health care professions are all trained at NEAETC. NEAETC provides a variety of educational options, including clinical consultation and skill development and continuing education credits (CEU and CME) for numerous events. The activities of NEAETC improve HIV prevention and care competency, therefore enhancing services for individuals living with HIV. During the COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) pandemic, the New England AIDS Education and Training Center (NEAETC) is devoted to providing up-to-date information and guidance on the pandemic and its implications for individuals living with and at risk of HIV. This data has been divided into five major categories:
- Infographics, Fact Sheets, and Web Pages
- Recommendations and Guidelines
- Federal Resources Selected
- Disparities in Health
- Resources Selected from AETCs
Through workforce development, education, technical support, and advocacy, we aim to expand access to, eliminate inequities in, and improve HIV care and service delivery quality. The National Alliance for HIV Education and Workforce Development (NAHEWD) is a membership organization comprised of eight regional and two national AIDS Education and Training Centers (AETCs) that support the objectives of the AETC Program. NAHEWD, which was founded in 2010, supports the AETCs, a component of the HRSA-funded Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which has an explicit mandate to develop and maintain a well-educated and culturally sensitive health professions workforce capable of providing HIV prevention, diagnosis, care and treatment, and medical management to people at risk for and living their life with HIV.
The National HIV/AIDS Strategy emphasizes the importance of lowering new infections, increasing access to care and health outcomes, eliminating inequalities, and creating a more coordinated response. Workforce development is critical to achieving these objectives. Even if all persons living with HIV were identified and linked to care, the present healthcare system would face problems. Many of the first HIV workers are already retiring. Treatment advances have resulted in a community living longer with HIV and having comorbidities associated with aging and presenting as more complicated patients. Rapid translation of knowledge into evidence-based practice guidelines is critical to providing high-quality treatment.
Filling the gap in well-trained HIV health workers is a critical step toward HIV eradication in the United States. Our current collaborators are the following:
- AIDS United
- AIDS United promotes community-driven HIV/AIDS initiatives across the country that target the nation's most disproportionately affected populations.
- Opioid Response Network (ORN)
- The Opioid Response Network (ORN) was established to aid in preventing, treating, and rehabilitating opioid use disorder.
- American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP)
- The American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP) is the leading national professional association for Addiction Psychiatrists, doctors, and allied health professionals committed to drug use disorders and co-occurring mental illnesses teaching, training, research, and policy.
- American Academy of HIV Medicine (AAHIVM)
- The American Academy of HIV Medicine (AAHIVM) is a professional association that supports HIV practitioners while also advocating for accessible, high-quality care for all Americans living with HIV.
- Providers Clinical Support System (PCSS)
- In response to the opioid epidemic, PCSS educates primary care clinicians on evidence-based prevention and treatment of opioid use disorders (OUD) as well as chronic pain management. NAHEWD promotes PCSS across its network and is a member of the PCSS steering committee.
