Putting people and Good Participatory Practice at the center of our work
More than 40 years of HIV prevention advocacy has demonstrated the essential role communities must play for the world to achieve epidemic control and advance global health. The history of HIV advocacy is unique; affected communities came together calling out their needs and demanding justice. The result has been a smarter, more equitable, more effective response to a global health threat than ever seen before.
AVAC connects the global response to the real needs of affected people, and we do this by:
Good Participatory Practice (GPP) is a flagship of this work. Guidelines AVAC developed in partnership with UNAIDS in 2007 provide a global standard for broad and inclusive stakeholder engagement in clinical trial research.
The inclusion of communities and civil society in the research enterprise is a core principle for ethical conduct of clinical trials, and essential to an effective Global response to HIV. The GPP guidelines have been adapted for clinical trials in other fields, including tuberculosis, COVID-19, and emerging pathogens.
At AVAC, we train trial staff on the guidelines, support their adaptation to other fields, prepare and support advocates to ensure the application of GPP in trial communities, and engage with the research community and ethics boards to maximize their use. Learn more about the GPP Guidelines here.
Since its first draft, the GPP guidelines have been adopted and used in HIV research and far beyond. AVAC has collected this body of evidence for GPP to demonstrate the power of GPP, to show how GPP can be measured and replicated, and to offer GPP training, tools and connection to everyone involved in the research enterprise.
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Writing in The Lancet Global Health, AVAC staffers Stacey Hannah, Jessica Salzwedel, and several co-authors, write about the importance of community stakeholder engagement clearly seen after World Health Organization adoption of new rules requiring clinical trials to improve this kind of coordination.
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In this episode of PxPulse: The Advocacy Chronicles we delve into community-led monitoring (CLM) in Malawi, where civil society and communities are successfully using this approach to connect government decision makers to the gaps in HIV services and to what people really need.
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Led by AVAC alongside a network of partners, the People’s Research Agenda puts forward recommendations to diversify and strengthen the HIV prevention pipeline, enhance investment and financial support for HIV prevention research and development, and guide an advocacy strategy that truly addresses the needs of communities across the prevention pipeline.
Ethical and effective stakeholder engagement throughout clinical trials and research agendas for HIV prevention and beyond.
Training US, European and African partners in advocacy to advance research and ultimately rollout of interventions related to HIV cure and prevention.
Manifesto to align HIV prevention research with trans and gender diverse realities.
In its first 100 days, the Trump administration proposed deep cuts to public health and HIV funding, attacked evidence-based healthcare, defunded scientific research, rolled back protections for LGBTQ+ people, and emphasized punitive criminal legal approaches. These moves pose serious threats to the future of HIV-related services, care, prevention, and the broader struggle for health equity and racial justice in our multiracial democracy.
Join CHLP for this moderated panel discussion focused on what the first 100 days of the Trump administration have meant for our communities, particularly people living with HIV, Black and brown people, LGBTQ+ people, and those impacted by criminalization, and how we are collectively shifting strategy to meet the current political moment.
In this presentation at the INTEREST 2025 conference, Rhoda Msiska of Copper Rose Zambia emphasizes the urgency of protecting the progress made in scaling up PrEP and the need to act now to expand access to new HIV prevention tools like injectable lenacapavir (LEN) and the Dual Prevention Pill (DPP).
Join AVAC and partners for a critical conversation on the escalating threats to health research and equity-centered science. This webinar will unpack the implications of the proposed FY26 US federal budget—which includes sweeping cuts to NIH, CDC, USAID, and the elimination of vital global and minority health research programs. Together, we’ll explore what these attacks mean for communities, researchers, and implementers and identify actionable advocacy strategies to fight back.