William T. Robinson ^1*, Debbie Wendell ², DeAnn Gruber ¹, Joseph Foxhood ², M. Beth Scalco ¹, Amy Zapata ¹

¹ Louisiana Office of Public Health HIV/AIDS Program, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Cente
² Louisiana Office of Public Health HIV/AIDS Program

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: brobinso{at}dhh.la.gov.

	Abstract

Hurricane Katrina disrupted HIV/AIDS surveillance by invalidating the New Orleans, La, surveillance and population data on persons living with HIV/AIDS. We describes 2 methods—population return and HIV surveillance data—to estimate the return of the infected population to New Orleans. It is estimated that 58% to 64% of 7068 persons living with HIV/AIDS returned by summer 2006. Although developed for HIV planning, these methods could be used with other disease surveillance programs.

Key Words: Epidemiology, HIV/AIDS, Refugees, Surveillance, Statistics/Evaluation/Research, Urban Health