Blacks & HIV/AIDS

Blacks & HIV/AIDS: The Hidden Costs

Taken from the December 2006 issue of Ebony Magazine.

-Blacks account for nearly half of the roughly 1 million Americans living with HIV.
-Nearly 70 percent of the new AIDS cases among women are Black
-Black females are diagnosed with HIV 20 times the rate of White females and more than four times the rate of Hispanic females.
-Among Black females, roughly 78 percent of the HIV diagnoses were attributed to high-risk heterosexual contact. Intravenous drug use accounted for 19 percent.
-Black males are diagnosed with HIV at seven times the rate of White males, more than two times the rate of Hispanic males and almost twice the rate of Black females.
-Blacks represent more than 56 percent of the new AIDS cases among youth
-Blacks account for 38 percent of all AIDS deaths in the U.S. since the beginning of the epidemic.
-In 2002, HIV was the No. 1 cause of death for Black women 25 to 34 years of age.

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