A Message From Your Friends At The Southeast AETC: Our hearts go out to those in our community who were affected by the hurricanes. If you have patients that are having trouble accessing HIV services during this time, we urge you to utilize HRSA’s Find a Ryan White Provider tool to help navigate them to services nearby.

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About Us

Providing HIV/AIDS Education & Training Since 1987

The Southeast AIDS Education and Training Center (SE AETC) is one of eight regional AETCs across the country. Encompassing Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, the SE AETC offers comprehensive, collaborative educational opportunities designed to increase the size and strength of the HIV clinical workforce, improve outcomes along the HIV Care Continuum, and reduce the number of new HIV infections. The SE AETC region is comprised of eight states representing 20.4% of the US population and 22.74% of People with HIV (PWH). The CDC reports that 269,977 PWH were living in the Southeast region in 2019. The region is also home to 837 hospitals, 1,210 rural health clinics, 255 federally qualified healthcare centers (FQHCs) and “look-alike” centers, 132 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) recipients, and two of three Historically Black Medical Schools in the US. The South has the highest rate of new infections in the country as well as some of the worst health metrics. According to the CDC, of the 37,968 new HIV diagnoses in the US in 2018, 51% were in the South. HIV rates per 100,000 population were generally highest in the South with two of the three highest rate states in the Southeast – Florida and Georgia. In 2018, there were 15,820 deaths among adults and adolescents with diagnosed HIV in the US and nearly half (47%) of those deaths were in the South. The SE AETC has been located at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) since September 2015. Prior to that, VUMC was the home of the Tennessee AETC. After receiving the award from HRSA in 2015, we quickly partnered with institutions across the Southeast to advance the AETC mission in the region. We also provide self-paced learning, webcasts, coaching for capacity building, and live didactic and interactive events.

The AETC Program was established by the Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in 1987. The mission of the AETC is to strengthen the HIV workforce by:

  • Increasing the number of health care providers who are educated and motivated to counsel, diagnose, treat, and medically manage people with HIV
  • Helping to prevent HIV transmission among people at risk for HIV

The AETC Program aligns with the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) to:

  • Prevent new HIV infections
  • Improve HIV-related health outcomes for people with HIV
  • Reduce HIV-related health disparities and health inequities
  • Achieve integrated and coordinated efforts that address the HIV epidemic among all partners and stakeholders

The Southeast AETC (SE AETC) is part of a nationwide network of 8 regional AETCs founded by the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) to train healthcare providers and disseminate rapidly changing information about HIV/AIDS.

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