This May, HepVu and other leading viral hepatitis organizations across the U.S. are recognizing Hepatitis Awareness Month, bringing attention to the often-overlooked epidemic of viral hepatitis, by raising awareness and encouraging people to seek testing for viral hepatitis.
This Hepatitis Awareness Month, HepVu is sharing upcoming tools and resources it plans to launch to continue making data on viral hepatitis widely available, easily accessible, and locally relevant to inform public health decision making.
Limited data is one of the most critical gaps in our national response to viral hepatitis. Though deaths associated with Hepatitis C continue to surpass the total combined number of deaths from 60 other reportable infectious diseases – including HIV, pneumococcal disease, and tuberculosis – the public health surveillance system for Hepatitis C is not as robust or extensive as it is for other infectious diseases like HIV and COVID-19. Additionally, between 880,000 to 1.89 million people are living with Hepatitis B in the U.S. and as many as two-thirds of them may be unaware that they’re infected. This makes it challenging to understand the scope of the viral hepatitis epidemic in the U.S. and to develop tailored strategies to improve access to screening, treatment, and prevention services.
In order to better visualize data and disseminate insights on the viral hepatitis epidemic across the U.S., HepVu plans to launch these tools and resources in 2022.
- In partnership with NASTAD, HepVu will release the findings of an inaugural viral hepatitis surveillance status report. This report will assess how jurisdictions across the U.S. are measuring the impact of viral hepatitis on their communities, identify best practices, and highlight areas in need of additional resources.
- Updated data and comparison maps visualizing 2022 Hepatitis C treatment restrictions at the state-level, utilizing insights and research findings provided by the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation (CHLPI) of Harvard Law School and the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable (NVHR)
- Updated data and maps visualizing 2017-2020 Hepatitis C prevalence at the state-level
- Updated data and maps visualizing 2018 Hepatitis C-related mortality at the county and state level
- Updated data and maps visualizing 2019 county-level opioid indicators and 2020 state-level opioid indicators
- Estimates of the number and rate of state-level injection-involved overdose deaths, as a proxy to identify geographic areas of the U.S. with a high burden of injection drug use, from HepVu’s 2022 fellow Dr. Eric Hall.
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