You might recognize Eva Fields before you ever meet her. The 37-year-old Roswell resident can be spotted standing next to Grammy-winning recording artist Alicia Keys in YouTube videos and on billboards in Georgia and around the U.S. Fields wants the ads to send a particular message.

 

"Yes, I am an HIV-positive woman, but I'm not a ticking time bomb. I'm not going anywhere," she said.

 

Fields is joining Keys and four other HIV-positive women in Empowered, a campaign launched by the Kaiser Family Foundation's Greater Than AIDS initiative that aims to highlight the power of women to change the course of HIV/AIDS. On April 15, the group introduced the Empowered campaign in an event broadcast live from Washington, D.C. by the Kaiser Family Foundation. During the event, Keys said the campaign is a battle cry to put women first in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

 

"We will never see an AIDS-free generation without harnessing the power and strength of women," Keys said.

 

Fields said the chance to star in a major national campaign with a celebrity like Keys was an exciting opportunity. But meeting the other women working on the project was an especially comforting part of the experience.

 

"It's kind of a relaxing feeling to see these other women and know they know what you're going through, that they've gone through the same trials and tribulations dealing with HIV that I have," she said.

 

Thousands of women around the U.S. can relate to Fields and her co-stars. According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of every four Americans living with HIV is a woman. In 2010, women accounted for 20 percent of all new infections in the U.S.

 

The Empowered campaign aims to increase women's awareness of how the virus impacts them and how they can protect themselves. But it also aims to change the way people think about men and women who live with the virus. Fields said battling the stigma attached to HIV is one of her biggest motivations for participating in the campaign.

 

"I knew I didn't like the way I was treated when I first found out [I was infected]," she said. "But I knew that God put those experiences in my hands and wanted me to do something about it."

 

Fields was diagnosed with the virus at age 17. She was living on her own in Augusta, expecting a child, and felt scared, depressed and alone. Five years after her diagnosis, she was taking classes to earn a degree as a medical assistant when a routine question on a student health form informed school officials that Fields was HIV-positive. She was promptly escorted off the campus. The experience was one of the most traumatic and painful of her life, she said.

 

"That's a feeling I don't even want my enemies to have," she said. "Because of the lack of education that this school had at the time, I knew I had to go and speak out about HIV/AIDS and spread education and awareness."

 

Fields began speaking about the virus to groups of all kinds, an effort she continues today through Greater Than AIDS and with groups around Georgia. She said she refuses to sugarcoat the facts about the virus, especially when talking to young people. She hopes the Empowered campaign will motivate women to take control of their own lives and take a leading role in the national conversation about HIV/AIDS.

 

"This campaign gives women an opportunity to know that we can be candid and open about this, and we can take control of it," she said.

 

It has been 19 years since Fields was diagnosed with HIV and today, levels of the virus are nearly undetectable in her body. She hopes women around the U.S., whether HIV-positive or -negative, will be inspired by her story to be their own advocates.

 

"You need to be responsible for yourself, be responsible for your own health. To me, that's being empowered," she said.  

 

-Story by Carrie Gann, DPH Communications