Podcast: The Impact of a PrEP Aware Week Campaign on PrEP Prescription Fills in New York State
JPHMP Editor-in-chief Lloyd Novick speaks with James Tesoriero and Rachel Newport about the Impact of a PrEP Aware Week Campaign on PrEP Prescription Fills in New York State.
In this episode of the Editor’s Podcast, I speak with two authors of a new article in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice who describe an intervention shown to increase prescription fills for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a key tool in state and national efforts to end AIDS as an epidemic. Importantly, they found that the benefits of the intervention were realized across sex, region, and racial and ethnic subgroups and that it should be easily replicable across jurisdictions.
The title of the article is “Assessing the Impact of a PrEP Aware Week Campaign on PrEP Prescription Fills in NYS,” which appears in our September 2022 issue. Authors of the article describe how the New York State (NYS) Department of Health AIDS Institute engaged stakeholders across the state to participate in its first “PrEP Aware Week,” which sought to increase the knowledge, interest, and number of PrEP prescriptions filled across NYS. PrEP Aware Week activities were designed to be easy to implement, with minimal cost. Stakeholders were provided activities to implement, along with a social media toolkit featuring videos, graphic ads, and sample social media posts in English and Spanish to use as-is or modify. PrEP Aware Week included over 750 distinct events and activities undertaken by over 250 participating providers.
I recently had a chance to speak to James Tesoriero and Rachel Newport about the impact of their work.

James Tesoriero
James Tesoriero, PhD, directs research, new programming, and quality improvement initiatives at the New York State Department of Health’s AIDS Institute. He has served as the Institute’s Director of Epidemiology, Evaluation and Partner Services and as the Director of HIV Prevention. Dr. Tesoriero serves on the Health Department’s IRB and as an adjunct faculty at the University at Albany School of Public Health. Dr. Tesoriero received his doctorate in criminology from the University at Albany.

Rachel Newport
Rachel Newport, MSED, is a Senior Health Program Coordinator at the New York State Department of Health’s AIDS Institute. She leads statewide public health campaigns and oversees the PrEP, HIV, STI and Viral Hepatitis Consumer Education Materials Initiative, distributing 500,000+ print items per year in addition to managing regional training centers that deliver programming across New York State on HIV, HCV, STIs, LGBTQ health, drug user health and related topics.
Listen to the Podcast:
- Podcast: Using Implementation Science to Promote Equitable HIV-Related Outcomes in the US and Africa
- Marcus Stanley Is Engaging Communities to Combat HIV/AIDS
Author Profile

- Lloyd F. Novick, MD, MPH, is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Public Health at the Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University. Previously, he was chair of this Department. He has served as the Commissioner of Health and Secretary for Human Services of Vermont, Director of Health Services for Arizona, and Director of the Office of Public Health for New York State. Previous academic positions include Professor and Director of the Preventive Medicine Program for SUNY Upstate Medical University, Professor and Chair of Epidemiology at the University of Albany School of Public Health, and Clinical Professor and Director of the Teaching Program in Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Vermont, College of Medicine. He is the Founding Editor and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. He is also editor of five books, including Public Health Administration: Principles for Population-Based Management; Public Health Issues in Disaster Preparedness; Community-Based Prevention Programs that Work; Public Health Leaders Tell Their Stories; and Health Problems in the Prison Setting. He is past president of the Association of Teachers of Prevention and Research (APTR) and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). He has received a number of national awards, including Special Recognition Award, American College of Preventive Medicine (2005); Duncan Clark Award, Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine (2003); Yale University Distinguished Service Award (2003); Excellence in Health Administration, American Public Health Association (2001); and the Arthur T. McCormack Award, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (1992). He is a graduate of Colgate University (BA), New York University (MD), and Yale University (MPH).
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