Racial Disparities Remain in HIV/AIDS Cases

Racial disparities remain in the number of HIV/AIDS diagnoses in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. Overall rates of HIV/AIDS diagnoses in the U.S. stayed steady for 2000-2003, but the rate of HIV/AIDS diagnoses for non-Hispanic African Americans was higher than among other racial and ethnic groups. African-American women made up 69 per cent of female HIV diagnoses during 2000-2003. The rate of HIV/AIDS diagnoses among African American females in 2003 was more than 18 times higher than that of white women and nearly five times higher than among Latina women. "The number of women of color in the United States that continue to be affected by this devastating disease is quite sobering," said Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson, who will soon step down from his post after four years, in a press statement. In the 32 states that conducted confidential, name-based reporting from 2000-2003, 125,800 people were reported to have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. More than half of these diagnoses were among African Americans, though they make up only 13 per cent of the population. Latinos made up 15 per cent of the diagnoses, Asians/Pacific Islanders and American Indians accounted for 1 per cent of the diagnoses and 32 per cent of the diagnoses were among whites. Men of color were also disproportionately represented among rates of new HIV diagnoses. In 2003, the highest rate of HIV/AIDS diagnosis was among African-American males, which was almost seven times that of white men. During 2000-2003, men who have sex with men continued to account for the largest proportion of diagnoses. [more]

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