Dustin Hampton, 23
Condom crusader | RAIN education coordinator
 

Story by Christina Jacobson
Video by Caroline Zilk
Photo by Liana Cecil

Nearly 400 people in Columbia live with HIV, and about 100 more cases are still undetected.

Reaching out to nearly 1,000 people a month as education coordinator for AIDS/HIV, STD and Hepatitus C testing education, Dustin Hampton is trying to decrease the number of people contracting the disease. He works full time for RAIN, a Columbia advocacy group for HIV awareness. Traveling to prisons, nightclubs and festivals such as the Boone County Fair, Hampton has become so well-known that people recognize him and ask to be tested. “I can do that for them,” he says. “I’m there.”

Hampton talks openly about the hardest part of his job. “The worst reaction I’ve come across was when a young guy tested positive,” he says. “Soon as he heard, he dashed out the door. We had to chase him down. News like that for some people can seem like a death sentence. We have to be there so it’s not so scary.”

HIV hit close to home last year when three of Hampton’s close friends contracted the virus. “I asked myself, what did I do wrong?” he says. “This is what I’m trying to prevent. But I can’t be everywhere to put the condom on everyone.”

By assigning case managers, RAIN helps people with housing, medicine or just emotional support. Statistics show that people with HIV who are given this kind of support greatly improve their quality of life.

While an undergraduate at MU, Hampton was president of the Triangle Coalition and co-founder of a gay-friendly fraternity, Delta Lambda Phi. He currently volunteers for the Mid-Missouri Crisis Hotline as a crisis intervention specialist. “All of that, and he never complains,” says Gina Bickel, one of Hampton’s friends. “He’s so motivated.”

Hampton is currently pursuing a master’s degree in counseling psychology and hopes to enter medical school to become a psychiatrist. “Fighting the AIDS epidemic is probably the most menacing health issue globally,” Hampton says. “What’s promising is that it’s 100 percent preventable.”