National Task Force on Hepatitis B-- United States
Health outcomes additional info
Provider education to encourage primary care providers to treat uncomplicated HBV cases.
Summary and objectives
Founded in 1997, the National Task Force on Hepatitis B (Hep B Task Force) originally focused on the Asian and Pacific Islander American community to tackle the disease burden of hepatitis B among the target population. The Hep B Task Force has been a volunteer-based national coalition traditionally lead by medical doctors and co-led lead by public health professionals. The Hep B Task Force envisions a United States free of hepatitis B. Our mission is to eliminate hepatitis B virus (HBV) and related chronic liver diseases, including delta hepatitis virus (HDV), and to prevent liver cancer in the United States by empowering and mobilizing the medical provider community; supporting existing and future workforce development; leveraging partnerships with health care providers; enabling national networking and policy development; and advocating for access to education, screening, vaccination, comprehensive care, and affordable treatment for all living the US.
Our success has been in supporting hepatitis B educational resources for providers, which include offering CME / CE opportunities; we are currently assisting with two hepatitis B ECHO hubs (San Francisco and Philadelphia), which meet monthly. Other hepatitis education resources include general public information targeted at ethnic communities that may be at-risk for HBV and/or HDV infections. We assist with making the resources linguistically and culturally appropriate for the target audience for dissemination.
Our challenge has been in engaging providers in private practice to invest their time in long-term advocacy work because of the nature of their clinical schedule.
