From Reagan to Obama: The Impact of Politics in HIV Prevention in America 

The Third Annual John H. Gagnon Distinguished Lecture on Sexuality, Modernity and Change.

Where: 835 Market St, Room 607

When: September 24, 2009, 7:00PM. Wine and cheese reception immediately following.

Please RSVP to hmsxdept@sfsu.edu or by leaving a message at (415) 405 3570.

"From Reagan to Obama: The Impact of Politics in HIV Prevention in America" by Cynthia Gomez, PhD

This lecture focuses on the critical role politics continues to play in determining how our society learns about, addresses, and copes with a pandemic embedded in the context of our sexual mores, prejudice, and racial and ethnic inequalities. It will highlight the historical political response since the discovery of HIV to the current efforts of the Obama administration.

Cynthia A. Gómez, PhD, is the founding director of the Health Equity Institute for Research, Practice & Policy at San Francisco State University where she leads efforts to enhance and integrate campus research, curricula, community service and training programs that address health disparities and/or promote health equity in the United States. She previously served as co-director of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at the University of California at San Francisco. Her research has focused on cultural determinants in sexual behaviors, the role of power dynamics in sexual risk among women, and in the development and translation of HIV prevention interventions, including interventions for children, families, and people living with HIV. Dr. Gómez has been very involved in the policy arena of HIV prevention in the U.S. including as an appointed member to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS under both WJ Clinton and GW Bush administrations.

This lecture series are named after John H. Gagnon. Professor Emeritus John H. Gagnon is America's Premier social scientist and thinker in the study of modernity, sexuality and politics of social change in the United States. He is a sociologist and sexologist. Gagnon developed script theory. He has hugely advanced our understanding of how society changes sexuality.