In June, we welcomed new CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden. I was able to meet with him on his first day at CDC, and thanked him for his longstanding support of our prevention programs and global health efforts. Dr. Frieden noted in his first address at CDC that President Obama is committed to prevention as a key component of health reform: “Prevention is on the map as it never has been before.” Later in the month, I joined Jeffrey Crowley, Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, and members of the National Association of People with AIDS for a press conference on Capitol Hill to commemorate National HIV Testing Day (NHTD). There too, the focus was on prevention! For more discussion on NHTD, please see my blog.

Social Determinants of Health Report

NCHHSTP has released the consultation report of proceedings and suggested priorities from our external consultation on Social Determinants of Health. The consultation, held in December 2008, opened discussions among leading academic, scientific, public health, and community stakeholders on how working within the framework of the social determinants of health could enhance our prevention efforts.

Consultation attendees identified top priorities, activities, and challenges for aligning our work within this framework. Key focus areas included public health policy, surveillance and epidemiology, partnerships and capacity building, and prevention research and evaluation. The ideas generated have strengthened our first steps to establish key goals, potential strategies, and evaluation criteria for our future efforts to address social determinants of health.

This collaborative meeting broadened the conversation about social determinants of health to include viewpoints not only from traditional federal and private sector partners, but also new voices. The passion and collective commitment expressed in the meeting left all with renewed energy for reducing health disparities by forging new, critical connections for prevention.

Surveillance for Acute Viral Hepatitis – United States, 2007 reports that viral hepatitis continues to be a major public health problem disproportionately affecting Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics. Hepatitis A virus (HAV) transmission continues among injection-drug users and men who have sex with men, and a higher proportion of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) occurs among injection drug users and persons with sexual risk factors; therefore, strengthened hepatitis vaccination efforts are needed among these adult populations. The increasing awareness of transmission in healthcare settings due to inadequate infection control serves as a call to state and local public health professionals to consider enhancing oversight of these healthcare settings and follow up with those

not typically at risk for HBV and HCV infection. As acute viral hepatitis infections decline, hepatitis control and prevention will increasingly rely on data from surveillance of chronic infections.