The Community Research Program on AIDS was established in 1995. It has carried out more than twenty research projects, most of which were funded by the Hong Kong Council for the AIDS Trust Fund. It implements behavioral surveillance studies for different populations such as travelers, male commercial sex clients, men who have sex with men and women. Another project tracks the changes of Hong Kong citizens' knowledge, awareness, attitude and discrimination towards people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) from 1994 to 2001, via a series of 7 surveys. It also carried out the first

large-scale longitudinal project on the needs assessment and quality of life (QOL) of the People living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Hong Kong; and is validating the first QOL measurement instrument for Chinese PLWHA. The Program has also served as an independent evaluator of many programs run by the non-government organizations such as the Hong Kong Council of Social Services and the Committee of Education and Prevention on AIDS. Other interesting projects carried out in Hong Kong include HIV-related risk behaviors of school children, risk behaviors of blood donors, methodology of collecting HIV-related behavioral data, intervention program to reduce discrimination towards PLWHA by school children.

As HIV has never been and will never be a locally confined problem, the program goes beyond the territory. Prof. Joseph Lau has been serving as the secretary of the China-AIDS Network, comprising of AIDS workers and policy makers from most of the provinces in Mainland China, as well as a member of the China-Hong Kong AIDS Committee. He is currently serving as one of the international consultants for the HIV-Surveillance Project of the Yunan and Sichan Projects, which have been funded by the Family Health International. On the work level, the Program

has built up an excellent network and has been collaborating with the Epidemiology Department of the Peking Union Medical College, the Guangdong Provincial Center for Skin Disease and STD Control and Prevention, and the Shenzhen Institute of Dermatology & Venerology and Shenzhen Hygiene & Anti-epidemic Station on six intervention studies on HIV prevention for female sex workers, drug users and patients of sexually transmitted diseases. Serving as the Convenor of the Task Force on Traveler of the Government's AIDS Prevention and Care Committee, the Program has been a main driving force of cross-border HIV prevention. It serves as a dedicated researching, programming and advocating agency for changes. Researchers of the Program have often been invited to give presentations to its Chinese counterparts. Prof. Joseph Lau is also serving as the associate editor of Chinese Journal of Sexually Transmitted Infections.

As said, the Program is both research and action oriented. It has provided a substantial part of the information base of the AIDS campaign in Hong Kong. Its research results have been quoted in needs assessment and strategy papers prepared by different committees, in the announcement of Public Interest on TV and by the media. It has also supported one of the first HIV-education web pages in Hong Kong. Besides the above-mentioned, the Program has also taken an important role in planning and community mobilization, by serving as a member of the important Community Planning Project, and by serving as the Chairperson of the Coalition of AIDS Services Organization from 1999 to 2001. The Program will continue to take up this role.

We believe the Community Research Program on AIDS of our Centre has served a good example of how the Faculty of Medicine has fulfilled its mission of serving the community.