Collaborating To End
The HIV Epidemic
The DHIT HIV Innovation Sprint in Collaboration with Gilead
Where should HIV prevention efforts be focused? The Digital Health Institute for Transformation (DHIT), in collaboration with Gilead, facilitated answers to that question by engaging communities in three cities in the Southeast in late 2024 and early 2025.
The DHIT HIV Innovation Sprint in Collaboration with Gilead brought people who could benefit from HIV prevention together with those serving the community to match unmet needs with available resources.
As we continue to develop and ideate on HIV prevention solutions, we’re calling those with an interest in HIV prevention to join us. It’s your chance to shape the next wave of efforts to end the HIV epidemic.
Those who engaged...
Worked to enhance awareness, engagement and trust in the HIV community
Built capacity to create and sustain community programs aimed at ending the HIV epidemic
Innovated to drive health improvement
Worked to increase access to best practices and resources in preventing HIV
HIV Prevention: More Work to Do
The fight to end the HIV epidemic in the US has made encouraging progress in the past few years. New infections fell by nearly 8% from 2019 to 2021, for example, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While a lot of progress has been made toward ending the HIV epidemic, some new approaches and interventions are needed.
Patients, caregivers, individuals who could benefit from prevention, and populations most affected by HIV very often don’t have access to the resources they need. At the same time, health educators, innovators and entrepreneurs who have a lot to offer the HIV community often struggle to reach those in need. The sprint aimed to end this mismatch.
How Participants Got Involved
Those who chose to join the sprint—whether HIV prevention was integral to their work or simply meaningful to them—contributed in many ways, including participating in sessions in their city, promoting the events to their networks, and sharing knowledge and resources, to name but a few.
The Sprint: How It Worked
The DHIT HIV Innovation Sprint in Collaboration with Gilead engaged all parts of the HIV prevention community in a facilitated effort. People in Miami, FL, Birmingham, AL, and New Orleans, LA were invited to join the sprint in the fall of 2024 and continued participating through the end of the sprint in March 2025.
The sprint surfaced fresh ideas through design thinking. Elements included:
- Discovery Day in each city
- Two-day Design Challenge in each city
- Discussion on challenges, resources, goals and needs
- Curation of ideas and input from each city
- Discussions, knowledge-sharing and report-outs at the North Carolina Health Innovation District Summit, March 18-19, 2025 in Charlotte, NC
Who Was Behind This
DHIT lead the sprint in collaboration with Gilead Sciences, a company whose mission is to discover, develop and deliver innovative therapeutics for people with life-threatening diseases.