Human Rights & HIV: Public Health, the Media & the Fight Against Stigma & Discrimination

The 2014 Johns Hopkins-Pulitzer Center Symposium, "Human Rights & HIV: Public Health, the Media & the Fight Against Stigma & Discrimination," explored human rights and the global fight against AIDS. Watch the video of the symposium where leading public health and human rights experts and Pulitzer Center-supported journalists delved into issues regarding obstacles to prevention and treatment, human rights concerns and ideas on how to translate public health research into accurate and informative news stories.

Historic advances have inspired a vision of ending the epidemic. Nevertheless, key affected populations—including sex workers, the LGBT community and injection drug users—remain severely underserved and face social, legal and economic barriers to essential health services.

Panelists at the session discussed whether punitive laws, severe discrimination and entrenched cultural stigma violate human rights and harm public health. They also explored the media approach to coverage of this pressing public health issue.

Panelists:
Micah Fink - Director of "The Abominable Crime" and founder of Common Good Productions
Gregory Gilderman - Video journalist and professor, Columbia School of Journalism
Tonia Poteat, PhD, MPH, MMSc - Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology, JHSPH
Sheree Schwartz, PhD - Fellow, Key Populations Program, Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Right, JHSPH
Maurice Tomlinson - Jamaican lawyer, gay rights activist, and inaugural recipient of the 2012 David Kato Vision and Voice Award
Daniella Zalcman - London- and New York-based photojournalist

Moderators:
Chris Beyrer, MD - Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights, and President of the International AIDS Society
Joanne Rosen, JD - Associate Director, Clinic for Public Health Law and Policy; Associate Lecturer in Health Policy and Management, JHSPH

Fink, Gilderman and Zalcman received Pulitzer Center support to undertake their reporting around the world, including in Jamaica, Russia, Uganda and the Netherlands. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is part of the Pulitzer Center's Campus Consortium initiative.