A new HIV/AIDS epidemic paper shows that African-Americans, despite the recent HIV diagnoses drop, are still far more likely to be told they have HIV than white Americans.
University
of Connecticut researcher Cato T. Laurencin published the paper in
Springer’s Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. He and
his team published another paper 10 years ago that highlighted the
high HIV diagnoses numbers within the African-American community. The
follow-up looks at survey data from the 2016 HIV Surveillance Report
and 2010 U.S. Census.
According
to the paper, the trend noted 10 years ago has continued and even, in
some areas, gotten worse. In 2016 of both male and female
populations, blacks were 8.4 times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV compared to 2005 when it was 7.9 times more likely. The number
of black men with HIV was 9,969 in 2005. That number jumped to 12,890
in 2016 – a 29 percent increase.
The
most common HIV transmission came from black men-to-men sexual
contact with the number of men sleeping with men and diagnosed with
HIV rising from 4,020 to 10,233 (2005 to 2016). That’s a 154
percent increase.
Laurencin
said if this trend goes on, it would mean one in two black men who
have sex with other men will get HIV.
The
report suggests that African-American women with HIV through
heterosexual contact rose from 2,392 in 2005 to 4,189 in 2016 – a
75 percent increase. It also showed that 76 percent of heterosexual
men were diagnosed with HIV for the same timeframe.
Laurencin
said the report shows that more must be done with the
African-American community to lower the representation in every
transmission category.
The team came up with a five-fold plan geared toward community advocates and healthcare practitioners. The plan involves working to remove unconscious biases and prejudices when treating a patient, using new techniques and technology to prevent or stop HIV/AIDS. The team also said they wanted to work on decreasing the secondary issues – poverty, incarceration rates, STDs, etc. – anything that could increase the chance for a person to contract the AIDS virus.
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