According to a recent article in NPR, AIDS in the black community is a public health crisis. It was recently reported that the HIV rate among black women in certain areas ranks right up there with some African countries, and now NPR has some additional bleak statistics:

Of the more than 1 million people in the U.S. infected with HIV, nearly half are black men, women and children — even though blacks make up about 13 percent of the population. AIDS is the primary killer of African-Americans ages 19 to 44, and the mortality rate is 10 times higher for black Americans than for whites.

Dr. Robert Fullilove, a professor of clinical sociomedical studies at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and chairman of the HIV/AIDS advisory committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said when he started his work in 1986, only 20% of the HIV cases were African American.

NPR notes factors such as prisons, secrets in the black community, and criminalizing drug addiction as factors in the rising rate of HIV in the black community.

We  hope with the introduction of the at-home HIV test, it will help raise more awareness in the African-American community.

[YBW]