Dissemination of findings about the HIV epidemic at international conferences has been dominated by researchers from developed countries working in well-resourced and supported institutions. This has led to exclusionary practices where community healthcare workers and practitioners working in under-resourced contexts have had limited opportunities to share their own experiences. A low focus on research in their working contexts and lack of capacity to produce ‘acceptable’ research for dissemination at international audiences have exacerbated the exclusion. This article describes how early career researchers and abstract submitters in resource-limited developing countries, particularly in Africa, received online help from experienced volunteer mentors in the Abstract Mentor Programme (AMP), enabling them to share their work at international conferences on the issues of preventing and managing HIV and AIDS.

Keywords

abstract writing · conference presentations · healthcare professional development · HIV and AIDS · online mentoring