Overview
Core Surveillance
Georgia Medical Monitoring Project (GA MMP)
Enhanced Perinatal HIV Surveillance
HIV Behavioral Surveillance

Overview

Georgia's HIV/AIDS surveillance activities monitor the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the state and provide data critical to targeting the delivery of HIV prevention, care, and treatment. The State health department is uniquely able to conduct these activities because of the expertise, legal authority, and confidentiality protection of existing public health disease surveillance and reporting systems.

All of the information collected by the HIV Epidemiology Section is held strictly confidential. The Section is physically located in a separately locked area of an access-controlled building. Only authorized State HIV Epidemiology staff can enter the area where the information is kept. The paper reports are stored in locked cabinets, and electronic data are saved to a dedicated server that is physically secured and not connected to the state network or the internet. HIV Epidemiology staff abides by strict federal guidelines that prohibit intentional disclosure of HIV/AIDS data and limit risk of accidental disclosure of confidential data. For more information, please request our Security and Confidentiality Guidelines Brochure.

In Georgia, there are four main HIV/AIDS surveillance activities funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They are discussed in detail below.

Core Surveillance

Core Surveillance, sometimes called routine surveillance, is the primary source of population-based data on persons recently infected with HIV or diagnosed with AIDS in Georgia and in other states across the country. Core surveillance is conducted in every U.S. state and territory. Core data are used to answer several important questions:

• What are the characteristics of persons diagnosed with HIV?
• What is the scope of the HIV epidemic?
• What risk behaviors are leading to HIV infection?

Georgia Medical Monitoring Project (GA MMP)

The Georgia Medical Monitoring Project (GA MMP) is designed to produce nationally representative data on HIV-infected persons receiving care in the United States. Georgia is one of 26 states and cities across the nation participating in MMP. It is the only population-based study of its kind to collect behavioral and clinical information on the same person. The main activities include:

• Maintaining a list of all HIV care providers across the state.
• Matched patient interviews and medical record abstractions.

GA MMP will help to demonstrate how care is impacting the health of people with HIV in your community. The data from the project will be used to inform HIV prevention community planning groups, Ryan White CARE Act planning councils, providers of HIV care, and others to advocate for reducing gaps in existing resources. GA MMP will also provide an opportunity for policy decisions, resource allocation, and evaluation of prevention and treatment initiatives at the local and national levels to be based on population-based data.

Enhanced Perinatal HIV Surveillance

Enhanced Perinatal HIV Surveillance targets and tracks the progress of the reduction of perinatal (mother-to-child) transmission of HIV. Georgia began conducting this surveillance activity in 2006. The main activities include:

• Conducting medical record review and follow-up of mother/infant pairs to determine knowledge of maternal HIV infection status before birth, new HIV cases, new AIDS cases, AIDS-related deaths, and use of antiretrovirals and their efficacy in preventing HIV transmission.
• Assessing potential adverse outcomes of antiretroviral exposure among infected and uninfected children in the short and long term.

HIV Behavioral Surveillance

Examining behaviors that put people at risk for HIV infection is a key element of a comprehensive, integrated HIV surveillance system. HIV Behavioral Surveillance focuses on those groups who are at highest risk for infection, mainly men who have sex with men (MSM), injection drug users (IDU) and at-risk heterosexuals. Georgia was selected to participate in Behavioral Surveillance as one of 26 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2000. This project's activities include:

• Developing an ongoing surveillance system to ascertain the prevalence of HIV risk behaviors among groups at high risk for HIV infection for use in developing national and local prevention services and programs.
• Engaging community-based organizations (CBOs) in surveillance and questionnaire development.
• Collaborating with HIV/AIDS prevention programs to assess exposure to and use of local HIV prevention programs.
• Presenting data on at-risk populations for use in state/local prevention and treatment services planning/evaluation.

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