Demographic

Demographic: Patients with AIDS

Crystal Reese

HCS/490

April 17, 2013

Professor Marruffo

Demographic: Patients with AIDS

In today’s society blacks and Hispanics in the United States have been disproportionately affected by HIV and AIDS, compared with non-Hispanic whites, since the early years of the epidemic, although many have perceived the epidemic as affecting mostly white gay men. According to Centers for Disease Control, “CDC estimates that 1,148,200 persons aged 13 years and older are living with HIV infection, including 207,600 who are unaware of their infection. Over the past decade, the number of people living with HIV has increased, while the annual number of new HIV infections has remained relatively stable. Still, the pace of new infections continues at far too high a level particularly among certain groups” (CDC 2007-2012).

As early as October 1986, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recognized the disproportionate impact of AIDS among racial/ethnic minority groups. In 1987, the CDC published the first in a series of articles about the prevalence and rate of HIV infection among racial/ethnic minority groups in the United States. From 1981 through 1988, blacks accounted for 26 percent of AIDS cases while only representing 12 percent of the US population, and heterosexual contact and intravenous drug use were the primary modes of transmission among blacks in this country. Early surveillance data showed a disproportionate impact of AIDS among black and Hispanic women, and in late 1990, the CDC reported that although black and Hispanic women represented only19 percent of women in the United States, they accounted for 72 percent of US women diagnosed with AIDS. During the 1990s, my mother was an AIDS patient. As a young child I didn’t understand the meaning of her diagnoses but as I got older she explain to me how a person can contract the disease. That information was so much for a young child. In addition to that, it inspired...