Funding for County HIV Program Axed
By Cyndy Cole, The Arizona Daily Sun, Flagstaff
Jan. 11–For the first time in more than a decade, the Coconino County Health Department won’t have an outreach program aimed at preventing new HIV infections in Flagstaff’s gay men and bisexuals.
The state’s grants have gone to two outreach programs in Tucson and two in Phoenix instead, Health Department Director Barbara Worgess told the county Board of Health Wednesday.
“The funding cuts to CCHD for the HIV prevention program in Coconino County came as a surprise and a disappointment to us and we certainly understand the concerns of everyone involved in this effort,” Worgess stated in a press release.
She’s consulting with the Arizona Department of Health Services in hopes of restoring funding in the future, she said.
Coconino County Health Department’s Community PROMISE program was an outreach program aimed at safer sex in the gay and lesbian community, with volunteers telling stories of risky sex or continuous condom use based on real life events.
It has operated for a few years on a budget of almost $96,000 last year after winning a state grant to attempt to lower HIV infection rates among gay and bisexual men. This demographic has had the highest infection rate in Coconino County at 59 out of the county’s 130 AIDS/HIV cases in 2004, according to Arizona Department of Health Services statistics.
But the stats may not present an entirely accurate picture, because these men have been approached for AIDS testing with some frequency while other populations are not as routinely tested.
Cheryl Has No Horse and David Fiss, of the Coconino County Health Department, held events attended by 150 to 300 people about every month to get their messages across while working on Community Promise, handing out stories and condoms. The goal was to encourage people to be more aware of safer sex and, ultimately, to practice it continually.
The county’s Board of Supervisors honored them for their work in the fall.
They received word in December from the Arizona Department of Health Services that they’d be out of funding for their jobs and the program by Dec. 31.
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