The rise of HIV in African American Teens

Jennifer Jones

CapellaUniversityThe rise of HIV in African American Teens

Introduction

AIDS - a disease caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection continues to spread. More than 42 million people worldwide are infected with HIV (Myers, 2009). AIDS is a disease that affects people who have been infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It is said that someone has AIDS when his body due to the immunodeficiency caused by HIV, it is able to offer immune response against the unauthorized infections.

African Americans are twice as worried about becoming infected with HIV as all Americans combined(Croft, 2012). About half of all blacks surveyed know someone who has HIV or AIDS or has died from AIDS, compared with a third of all Americans who say the same(Cohen, 2005). AIDS is the nation's leading health concern according to 52% of blacks, compared with 38% of all Americans. Yet as AIDS cases among whites have been steadily dropping, the number of blacks and Hispanics with the disease has been rising at a disproportionate rate."

Discussion

Even though African Americans make up only 12% of the United States' population, they account for 43% of all new AIDS cases, and African American men represent 39% of new cases among all men, an annual incidence rate six times that of white men. In fact, among African-American men aged 25 to 44, AIDS fatalities outpace homicide deaths. A survey showed that African Americans believe that the government, schools and churches aren't doing enough to stem the tide of the deadly epidemic, the Ft. Worth Star Telegram reports. The survey questioned 811 African- American adults

The grim national statistics presented at the Harvard conference "prompted meeting organizers to call upon black leaders and government officials to do much more to stem the spread of the virus, the Boston Globe reports. In the opinion of other officials, this survey suggests a disturbing need for leadership within the African-American community about an epidemic which is sixteen times more likely to strike its women and six times more likely to strike its men, said Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the W.E.B. Dubois Institute and chair of Afro-American studies at Harvard (release, 3/17). Attending the Harvard conference was BarbaraGomesBeach, executive director of Boston's Multicultural AIDS Coalition, who agreed that there is a need to identify the stats; however, they have been criticized by the organizers as they have not reached out to the local residents, as well as, the local community. This is important for the fight against AIDS and people of this community need to make sure that they get rid of this. According to the officials, AIDS is not an issue that rests on the class or gender or community. It is a common problem and for this all the department have to work together in order to make sure that they are working in the best possible manner so that they are doing their best. For solving this issue they need individuals and communities who will work towards the ...