General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHalf of Gay Black Men Are Projected to Get HIV
February 23, 2016 12:00 PM EST
If youre a white American woman, your risk of being diagnosed with HIV is pretty small, lower than the odds of dying in a car crash. If youre a gay black man, the chances of getting an HIV diagnosis are closer to a coin flip.
About 43 percent of black men who have sex with men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetimes if the epidemics current trends hold, according to research being presented on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control. For Hispanic men who have sex with men, the rate is 22 percent. For white men who have sex with men, its about 10 percent.
The latest report is a staggering reminder that gay men of color bear the brunt of the HIV crisis. That fact has been evident for years in the data on HIV, but it has often gone unmentioned as public health campaigns focus on broad-based prevention strategies.
You see this community that is at far higher risk for HIV infection, but there almost seems to be a concerted effort not to talk about it, said Greg Millett, vice president and director of Public Policy at AmfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. Millett, who wasnt involved in the research, worked at the CDC until 2014 and helped craft President Obamas National HIV/AIDS Strategy.
Heres a look at the lifetime risk of getting HIV for different demographic groups, according to CDC data being presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-23/gay-black-men-are-still-bearing-the-brunt-of-the-hiv-crisis
OregonBlue
(7,754 posts)something else I'm not seeing?
madville
(7,412 posts)Are condoms available to their communities? The health department here gives out bags with about 2 dozen for free.
Are condoms readily available in prison? That would be another problem if not, especially with the high incarceration rate of black males in this country.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)at some point in their lives, than non-black men, which - studies show - is an arena where same-sex sexual activity is commonplace.
Second thing is, in general, if we had single-payer health care, I imagine highly effective PrEP therapies like Truvada would be doing much more as HIV-preventative tools than they do now, since, duh, it's expensive even for affluent people.