Puri is a first-year psychobiology student. Martinez is a
fifth-year psychology student.
By Siddarth Puri and Tom Martinez
It’s not surprising that today is relatively quiet. This
day doesn’t have the fanfare of Martin Luther King Jr. Day,
Presidents’ Day or Independence Day.
While February has long been celebrated as Black History Month,
few are aware that Feb.7 marks Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.
It’s a day of organized efforts to deliver much needed
information and awareness to the nation regarding the devastating
impact of HIV/AIDS on the black community, as well as others.
AIDS is the second leading cause of death among African American
men between the ages of 25 to 44, according to the Los Angeles
County Department of Health Services.
Rates of new HIV cases in the African American community have
consistently increased over the years. In the United States, there
are an estimated 900,000 Americans with HIV, and of these 325,000
are African American. One in every three cases is an African
American, yet African Americans make up only 12 percent of the U.S.
population. One in every 50 African American men is infected with
HIV; African American men who have sex with men are the most
severely affected in this group.
In Los Angeles County one of every five HIV infected gay men is
African American. For African American women, the number infected
with HIV is one out of every 160, which is 21 times greater than
the rate in white women.
A number of issues contribute to the disproportionately higher
number of blacks with HIV or AIDS. Many African Americans,
especially those living in communities facing socioeconomic
hardship, typically have limited access to healthcare and
counseling resources. In the past there has been a stigma that
HIV/AIDS is specific to the gay community, as opposed to everyone
““ this delayed both the quantity and quality of resources
dedicated to prevention and treatment. Successful prevention,
though, requires extensive education, testing and counseling
““ but promoting testing alone doesn’t solve the
problem.
In 1998, for example, 56 percent of more than 2 million tests
performed were taken by men who had already taken the test at least
once that year ““ this is referred to as “repeat
testing.” The data from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention’s “Young Men’s Survey,” shows
young men engaging in sex with men who got tested repeatedly were
more likely to acquire HIV and to report high-risk behaviors. Of
the repeat testers, more than 75 percent acquired HIV within one
year or less from their last test.
When HIV testing first began, counseling played an important
role. Today, people are tested without the benefits of in-depth
pre- and post-test counseling. To accomplish the education demands,
there needs to be a more consistent effort to educate and counsel
individuals who take HIV tests. Effective changes in behavior will
only come from better knowledge about what makes people vulnerable
to contracting HIV.
Projects such as Keeping Young African American Men Healthy are
committed to the reduction of new HIV infections in young African
Americans 18-29 years of age through research that clarifies the
necessary psychological and emotional prevention tools necessary
for young at-risk African American gay men.
Another organization, Black Care, has been committed in its
efforts with young heterosexual African American, Latino/a and
Asian American men and women to examine HIV risk reduction
strategies.
As we concern ourselves with conducting outreach, whether the
SAT is racially biased or not, and whether high school AP courses
are fair, we must not forget to worry about other factors that also
target African American community ““ health factors, and
specifically, HIV/AIDS.
We must be aware of the epidemic proportions of HIV in racial
and ethnic minority groups. The ways in which we focus our
prevention methods must couple education and counseling with
testing, since testing alone has proven an incomplete method of
risk prevention.
But this isn’t being done ““ today is a quiet day.
There are no teach-ins, celebrations, picnics or parties. Masses
are not gathered on the steps of Murphy hall, city hall or
Sacramento demanding the adoption of an emergency plan to end this
crisis in the African American community.
So, in the quietness of today’s Black HIV/AIDS Awareness
Day, where is your voice and what will you do to end the
suffering?