The HIV prevention coordinator's position and a “;major link”; with the community on HIV/AIDS issues has been eliminated in state Health Department budget cuts.

Nancy Kern, who has worked 19 years with the Health Department on HIV prevention and services, is moving to the department's Injury Prevention Branch beginning today.

She began working on HIV/AIDS with the Governor's Committee on AIDS, then became HIV prevention coordinator. Among her many awards was one from Harm Reduction Hawaii, which honored her as someone “;whose work has shown light upon unclear paths of life.”;

Peter Whiticar, chief of the STD/AIDS Prevention Branch, said, “;Nancy served as a communications hub, a major link with community-based organizations and the community so the Department of Health and the community could work together to provide prevention services not just to the general population, but to high-risk groups statewide.”;

When she started in HIV, he said, the program was moving from general education about the disease to targeted interventions on high-risk populations.

Whiticar said he will assume much of Kern's work with her four federally funded public health educators.

Kern said her most satisfying achievement was working with community groups to achieve the 1990 passage of the needle exchange bill.

“;Hawaii had the first state-mandated, state-funded sterile needle exchange program in the country,”; she said, adding that compared with other states, Hawaii's HIV transmission rate is relatively low among injection-drug users, their male and female partners and infants.

Abolishing her position “;leaves a void not just of personnel, but one of the most qualified state workers I've ever met in this or other states,”; said Paul Groesbeck, Life Foundation's executive director.

Born in Vancouver, Canada, Kern was a teacher there and also taught for a year at Jefferson Elementary School after coming here 35 years ago. After three children she went to the University of Hawaii and earned a master's degree in public health. She did a practicum at the Governor's Committee on AIDS, established in 1986 and attached to the Health Department, and became HIV prevention coordinator in February 1994.

The Centers for Disease Control mandated that all states develop a community planning group process, and in Hawaii 10 statewide planning groups met for a year; reported recommendations for HIV prevention, strategies and populations at risk; and formed a single planning group.

All at-risk populations are represented on the committee, and services have changed over the years to reflect their recommendations, Kern said. For instance, she said, services were recommended for transgenders, and they are being provided.

“;The culture of Hawaii is very inclusive,”; Kern said. “;Around the table sit representatives of all these groups. They are all included and respected in this process. That's the main reason I have become so involved in community planning.”;

Kern had been co-chairwoman of the committee for 12 years. Succeeding her will be Heather Lusk, Health Department hepatitis C coordinator.