National Minority AIDS Council Building Healthier Communities
Building Leadership in Communities of Color to Address HIV/AIDS
Impact of HIV/AIDS among Women of Color in the U.S.
Impact of HIV/AIDS among Women and Girls of Color
HIV/AIDS among Women and Girls of Color in the U.S.
Below are story ideas around HIV/AIDS and African American women and young women/girls in the U.S. For interviews, please call (202) 352-7240 or e-mail communications@nmac.org.
Learn more about USCA's Sponsor, NMAC's, new Women of Color Leadership Institute (WOCLI), which will be convening at this year's meeting. WOCLI equips and empowers women of color in understanding the policymaking system, the role of advocacy and the need to find a
voice in the decision-making process that impacts health for women of color.
2008 USCA sessions of note include:
Thursday, September 18, Institutes, 10:30 a.m. –
5:30 p.m. (break 12 noon – 1:15 p.m.)
Women’s Institute - Generation XX: The HIV/AIDS Impact on Girls and Young Women
Location: Room 207 and 208, Second Floor
Working with Transgender Populations: Intervention Strategies, Successes and Challenges
Location, Room 305, Third Floor
Friday, September 19, Seminars, 9:00 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Forgotten Population in HIV Prevention Beyond the DL: Black/African American Men Who Have Sex with Women
Location: Room 301, Third Floor
- The 10th Anniversary of the Minority AIDS
Initiative (MAI)
Location: Hall A, 1st Floor
See: USCA to Honor 10th Anniversary of the Minority AIDS Initiative
Getting Focused: Lessons Learned as Implementing Strategies for the Heightened National Response (HNR) to HIV/AIDS in African-American Communities
Location: Room 223, Second Floor
(Session will review information gleaned from focus groups in which African American women participants shared why they thought HIV/AIDS rates among black women are high, and what should be done about it. Differences were noted among responses from African American women living with and/or working on the frontlines of HIV/AIDS, and those black women who were not familiar with the AIDS epidemic.
While overall HIV/AIDS rates are going down in the U.S., the number of cases among African American women continue to increase.
African Americans accounted for nearly 50% of the 56,300 cases of HIV reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2006; African American women accounted for over 1/3 of all HIV cases among Blacks that year.
The majority of African American women living with HIV/AIDS acquired HIV through heterosexual sex. Between 2001 and 2004, women were diagnosed with heterosexually-transmitted HIV at a rate of 58.3 per 100,000 black females, compared to 15 among Latinas, 2.2 among white women, and 2.8 among Asians and Pacific Islander women.
In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 68% of the Black women who tested positive for HIV acquired the virus through heterosexual contact. Another 30% attributed their infection to injection drug use. The remaining 2% reported other or undetermined routes.
They also learn their HIV status later, leaving them more vulnerable to AIDS.
Of all women living with AIDS in 2006, 66% were African American, though just 12-13% of American women are black.
AIDS is the leading cause of death among all Black women, and is the number cause of death among women aged 25-34.
High rates of HIV/AIDS among Black women stem from stigma associated with the disease in the African American community.
African American women also tend to be the heads of their households, leaving them little time to care for their own health. There also is a misconception that AIDS is a disease impacting only gay white men.
Young
Women of Color and HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS is having an ever-increasing impact on girls and young women.
1 in 4 African American teen girls has an STD
Girls represent nearly half of AIDS cases reported among 13-19 year olds.
African American and Hispanic teen girls represented over 80% of all HIV/AIDS cases among people under age 18.
The reasons for high rates are as yet satisfactorily explored, but appear related to stigma and misguided notions around HIV/AIDS being a disease belong to gay white men.