Health Education Initiatives

PHACS take creative approaches to creating spaces for empowerment. Health education initiatives come about by working together with various audiences. These include study participants, caregivers, and PHACS study staff across the US. We focus on issues that caregivers and study participants identify as important and the solutions they identify as relevant. Some of these include disclosure, healthy transition to adulthood, medication adherence, and sharing the results of PHACS studies.  

Health Education and Communication Committee (HECC)

The Health Education and Communication Committee (HECC) is a group of individuals from all over the country who work on PHACS in different roles.

Our group includes HIV-affected community members, health educators, study nurses, psychologists, epidemiologists, biostatisticians, researchers, and representatives from the National Institutes of Health. The HECC’s approach is to gather as many different perspectives as possible to make our projects responsive – both to the needs of various target audiences and also to the environments they’ll be used in. The HECC was started in January 2013 and meets once a month.  

HECC Leadership

Co-Chairs:

Claire Berman, PHACS Director of Health Education and Communication, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health 

Megan Reznick, Clinical Research Associate, Westat  

Key Projects

• Design of new PHACS research network website
• Focus group study with youth and caregivers affected by HIV regarding technology use in young adulthood
• Creation and design of a responsive, youth-friendly website for young adults in AMP Up
• Disclosure resource for caregivers living with HIV
• Community Advisory Board (CAB) Handbook
• Dissemination of Study Findings Handbook
• Research Summary Template for Study Participants
• Media Strategy for PHACS
• Inspiration Hub
• Story Circles at CAB retreat
• "Storyline" Conference Calls for CAB members 
• Monthly Young Adult CAB meetings 

HECC Internships

We love working with interns! Our internships are based at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. We have partnerships in place with the graduate health communication programs at Tufts University School of Medicine and Emerson College in Boston, MA. However, we also welcome internship applications from students at any other institution with experience in and passion for health communication, HIV, and adolescent/young adult health. We can work remotely with people who aren’t based in Boston.

To find out more or to apply, send cover letter and resume to Claire Berman.