HIV Prevention debate: Oct. 24, 6-8pm

The NYU Master's Program in Global Public Health Presents
Rethinking HIV Prevention Strategy:
Debating What Works
A Conversations in Global Public Health panel discussion featuring:

Daniel Halperin, Ph.D.
Lecturer on International Health, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health

Bill Easterly, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, faculty affiliate of Africa House, Co-Director of Development Research Institute at New York University , Author of "The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good" (Penguin, 2006).

Helen Epstein, Ph.D.
Noted HIV/AIDS expert and public health researcher, author of "The Invisible Cure: Africa , the West and the Fight against AIDS" (Viking, 2007)

Since the eruption of the HIV pandemic over two decades ago, global public health experts have long advocated for a few major approaches in preventing the spread of the deadly disease. Billions of dollars have been poured into these efforts, led by multilateral organizations like the United Nations and financially backed by governments worldwide. Now, a group of researchers and scientists are saying that recent evidence shows that some of these long held prevention strategies just don't work very well. They're calling for a different approach to preventing HIV-AIDS in regions like Africa , and charge that health officials are wasting money pursuing approaches that are largely ineffective and unexamined. Organizations like UNAIDS counter that the impact of these programs is undeniable and can be seen directly in the worldwide decline of the HIV epidemic - which they say can be linked precisely to interventions such as condom distribution and HIV testing. What doesn't work and what would work better when it comes to preventing the spread of HIV, especially in Africa ? Join us for an exciting evening as our three panelists confront this pressing issue.


Friday, October 24th, 2008
6:00 ­ 8:00pm
Doors open at 5:30pm; Program begins promptly at 6:10pm
Tishman Auditorium at NYU's Vanderbilt Hall
40 Washington Square South , between MacDougal and Sullivan Streets
Free and open to the general public; light refreshments to follow

Visit www.nyu.edu/mph/events to RSVP and for more information

Speaker Biographies:
Daniel Halperin, M.S., Ph.D.
Prior to joining the faculty of the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Halperin served for over five years as the Senior HIV Prevention and Behavior Change Advisor at the US Agency for International Development. Dr. Halperin has conducted epidemiological and ethnographic research for over thirty years on a number of health and sociocultural issues in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions. Since completing his doctoral training in medical and cultural anthropology at the University of California , Berkeley in 1995, his work has mainly focused on the heterosexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. He has had extensive involvement in the design, management and evaluation of prevention, care and other HIV-AIDS programs, and continues to be actively engaged in collaborative endeavors with UNAIDS, WHO, CDC, UNICEF, Gates Foundation and other international partners in developing and disseminating policy-setting technical consultations, guidance documents, etc.
Most of Dr. Halperin's research and scientific publications (including in leading journals such as The Lancet, British Medical Journal, AIDS, and Science) have dealt with some of the previously more neglected HIV co-factors, such as concurrent sexual partner networks, lack of male circumcision, "dry sex" practices, alcohol use, and heterosexual anal intercourse. He has conducted field research and consultations over the years in a number of countries, including Brazil , South Africa , Botswana , Zimbabwe , Mozambique , Haiti , the Dominican Republic , Peru and in various inner-city U.S. communities, and has an extensive background working with at-risk youth, particularly socially disadvantaged young men.

Bill Easterly, Ph.D.
William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University , joint with Africa House, and Co-Director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also a non-resident Fellow of the Center for Global Development in Washington DC and Visiting Fellow at Brookings during the academic year 2007-2008. William Easterly received his Ph.D. in Economics at MIT. He was born in West Virginia and is the 8th most famous native of Bowling Green , Ohio , where he grew up. He spent sixteen years as a Research Economist at the World Bank. He is on the board of the anti-malaria philanthropy, Nets for Life. He is the author of The White Man’s Burden: How the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (Penguin, 2006), The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (MIT, 2001), 3 other co-edited books, and 59 articles in refereed economics journals. His work has been discussed in media outlets like the Lehrer Newshour, National Public Radio, the BBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the Economist, the New Yorker, Forbes, Business Week, the Financial Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, and the Christian Science Monitor. Foreign Policy magazine inexplicably named him one of the world’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals in 2008. Easterly's areas of expertise are the determinants of long-run economic growth, the political economy of development, and the effectiveness of foreign aid. He has worked in most areas of the developing world, most heavily in Africa, Latin America, and Russia . Easterly is an associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economic Growth, and of the Journal of Development Economics.

Helen Epstein, M.Sc, Ph.D.
Helen Epstein is a molecular biologist by training. In the early 1990s she worked at Makerere University in Uganda . She was until recently visiting scholar at the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University in the US and is currently working for Human Rights Watch. She has written extensively about public health issues in developing countries. Her public health-related articles have been published in both academic journals and popular magazines such as The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and Granta. Dr. Epstein earned a PhD from Cambridge University , UK , and an MSc from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is the author of The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West and the Fight against AIDS, (Viking Books, New York , 2007).

This event made possible in part by the generous support of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation