Across all major risk groups for HIV infection in the United States, African American men and women are disproportionately represented among the rise in new cases of HIV infection. Seroprevalence surveys conducted since 1987 indicate that new cases of HIV infections will increasingly concentrate in particular segments of the African American population, adding to their current burden of excessive rates of morbidity and mortality. The proposed summit will attempt to identify HIV/AIDS research questions that are of specific relevance to African Americans as a way of focusing the HIV research agenda necessary to control and treat the HIV/AIDS epidemic in this population. This summit will initiate a dialogue among top HIV scientists with the goal of establishing a comprehensive research agenda on HIV/AIDS in African American for the coming years. It is hoped that by focusing the attention of top HIV research scientists on the unmet research questions relevant to the prevention and treatment of HIV infection and AIDS in the African American population, strategies to control the epidemic can be found.
