The first step in rectifying the trends of increasingly high rates of STDs and flat rate of HIV in the United States is getting the story out there—informing providers and policy makers that there is a problem and some of what must be done to combat it, including what you may already be doing!

Do you think that others in your state, including legislators and decision-makers, know what your state STD and HIV programs are doing? It is essential that they do! How can we do that, you may ask? That is a good question and one that NCSD hopes to help with.  We recently saw a great one-page document from Louisiana’s Department of Health and would like to help other states create similar factsheets to tell the story of STDs/HIV and prevention programs in their states as a first step to tackle these trends.

Items to highlight would be:

• Disease burden;
• Basics of what the program does;
• Current funding;
• Barriers to prevention;
• Successes or next steps.