History of Dr. A. Brad Truax Awards

The Dr. A. Brad Truax Award was created to honor the memory of Dr. Truax and his contributions to the HIV/AIDS effort in San Diego. The Dr. A. Brad Truax Award, Outstanding Service Truax Awards, and Community Service Awards are given annually to recognize the outstanding contributions made by individuals involved in the struggle against the HIV/AIDS epidemic in our community.

Brad Truax was one of the first physicians in San Diego to treat people with AIDS. He became an advocate for laws to protect people with HIV/AIDS from discrimination and also became aware of his own AIDS diagnosis. Under his leadership in the 1980s, the Regional Task Force on AIDS began to coordinate a community-wide response in the fight against the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. This task of community planning, which Dr. Truax and the Task Force began, was ultimately taken up by the former HIV Health Services Planning Council, organized in 1990, and the former HIV Care Coalition, organized in 1991, both to address care services provided through the Ryan White CARE Act, and the former HIV Prevention Community Planning Board, established in 1995. These planning efforts continue today through the integrated San Diego County HIV Planning Group which merged in 2016.   

Dr. Truax was also an active member of the San Diego Physicians for Human Rights, which coordinated the first organized community campaign to raise funding for HIV/AIDS services and successfully competed to bring the first State money for HIV prevention to San Diego in 1983. Brad Truax exemplified community service even while he was sick with the ravages of the virus. He died from AIDS-related complications in 1988 at the age of 42. His memorial service was attended by hundreds of people. His legacy lives on today in the San Diego County HIV Planning Group, as well as San Diego County’s continuum of HIV prevention, care, treatment and support services for people vulnerable to and living with HIV.