Today’s young people are the first generation who have never known a world without HIV and AIDS. The CDC reports that in 2020, youth aged 13 to 24 made up 21% of the new HIV diagnoses in the United States. Young people living with HIV are the least likely of any age group to be retained in care and have a suppressed viral load. Addressing the impact of HIV on young people requires they have access to affirming, culturally-competent, and medically accurate resources and tools.

The National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD) Collective is comprised of youth activists leading HIV prevention, treatment, and care campaigns in their communities. Their campaigns highlight the challenges faced by young people living with and impacted by HIV, offer insight on how they combat stigma and discrimination on local, state, and federal levels, and enhance the awareness among physicians, policymakers, and youth-serving organization staff, etc. about the existing disparities.

➤ Increasing empathy and reducing stigma about HIV and its impact on young people on campus and in communities; ➤ Affirming policies around HIV care, treatment, and prevention on campus and in communities; ➤ Decriminalizing HIV; ➤ Accessing HIV services, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), on-campus and in communities without parental consent; ➤ Updating sex education curricula, which includes medically accurate information about HIV.