ACRIA Information

ACRIA envisions a world where all people with HIV receive the treatment and support they need to lead healthy, productive lives and where transmissions of the virus have been eliminated. In 1991, a group of physicians, activists, and people with HIV, tired of the slow pace of government-sponsored and academic research, took action. Under the leadership of prominent doctors and researchers, we brought the first-ever activist, community-based approach to the study of new treatments for the disease. Since then, ACRIA has contributed to the development of a remarkable 20 medicines that have gone on to receive FDA approval. Today, ACRIA studies the lives and needs of people with or at risk of HIV through its Research Programs; offers critical HIV healthcare education to HIV-positive people and their caregivers around the globe through its Training Center; while through the ACRIA Center on HIV & Aging, the organization is recognized as an international authority on the emerging issue of older adults and HIV; and finally with the 2017 acquisition of Love Heals: The Alison Gertz Foundation for AIDS Education, is the largest provider of sexual health and HIV prevention education in New York City schools and a leading provider of leadership development programs for young people from under-served and under-resourced communities, including LGBTQ youth, parents, teachers, and other youth allies. The mission that guides all of ACRIA’s programs—and has animated the creative communities to action on our behalf—is a truly inspired one: to pioneer the newest HIV prevention and health education, and get that information into the hands of the people who need it the most. To help us achieve this goal, in October 2017 ACRIA entered into a strategic partnership with Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), forging a link between both prominent groups working to end the AIDS epidemic and creating a new kind of service, research, and policy organization.