HIV/AIDS in the black community

Sunday is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. An alliance of groups of national organizations plans and directs the day in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control.

Blacks are disproportionately affected by the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Although blacks make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population, they account for more than 49 percent of all domestic AIDS cases.

AIDS is now the leading cause of death for black women ages 25 to 34, and the second leading cause of death for black men between the ages of 35 and 44.

According to the NBHAAD web site, blacks are affected by AIDS more than any other racial or ethnic group in the United States. Moreover, blacks don’t live as long as people of other races and ethnic groups with AIDS due to poverty and stigma.

When looking at the disease from the perspective of gender, for black men the most common causes of HIV/AIDS are having unprotected sex with another man or woman who has HIV and sharing contaminated needles or syringes. For black women, the most common causes are having unprotected sex with a man who has HIV, and sharing injections with contaminated syringes or needles.

Blacks at higher risk for contracting HIV are those who are unaware of a sexual partner’s risk factors, who have documented cases of other sexually transmitted diseases — which affect more blacks than any other group — and those who live in poverty, which is about 25 percent of all blacks.

HIV/AIDS is at an epidemic level in black America, according to the Centers for Disease Control. At the end of 2006, 46 percent of all people living with HIV infection were black. In 2007 blacks accounted for 51 percent of the 42,655 new HIV/AIDS cases, including children.

Preventing HIV in the black community faces some staggering challenges. Many blacks don’t have access to the health care they need to become aware of sexual risk factors. Crushing poverty and socioeconomic issues are breeding grounds for injection drug use, STDs, lack of awareness of HIV status and the stigma of seeking counseling and treatment.

Given that these are problems not easily solved, National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day offers a viable means of conveying information to stem the tide of HIV and persuade those who test positive that there is no stigma attached to finding care and treatment.