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"Healing in the Valley" Documentary
Healing in the Valley highlights stories of African Americans living with HIV and investigates how stigma and anti-Black racism makes African American communities more vulnerable to this disease. It also draws upon the expertise of doctors, researchers, faith leaders, outreach workers, and activists to explore solutions to addressing the HIV epidemic.
Executive Producers: Jelani Kerr and Miguel Hampton
Filmed by: F5 Enterprises, LLC and Photography By Miguel Hampton
Featuring: Raynard Guest, Midnight, Takeisha Nunez, Karen Krigger, Faith Fletcher, Kelsey Burton, Trinidad Jackson, Teresa Kay Obannon, Rev Edwin Sanders, Winston Husbands.
Watch the documentary on YouTube
About the Producer
Jelani Kerr is an Associate Professor of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Louisville. He received his PhD in Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior at the University of South Carolina. His research focuses on HIV-risk of people in the African Diaspora in the US and Canada. In particular, he investigates individual and social factors that influence HIV/AIDS disparities and partners with communities to develop interventions to reduce them. His work extends beyond measuring disparities to reducing them through multidisciplinary collaborations to develop and evaluate community-focused interventions. His work includes research that examines the impact of stigma on HIV treatment, programs to address PrEP access and uptake, and research to understand how drug policy impacts HIV vulnerability.
Dr. Kerr was asked to explain why he produced Healing in the Valley:
"It was borne out of a realization that African Americans are affected by HIV and many other diseases because of a larger, underlying societal pathology of injustice. It is informed by my research, which explores the how of social factors such as mass incarceration, stigma, and neighborhood disenfranchisement affect HIV vulnerability for African American communities. This project translates the findings from my research into a documentary and is meant to raise awareness of HIV in the community."
Funding
Many thanks to the Jewish Heritage Fund that provided funding for this documentary.
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