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News briefs & links 

See also Minority Issues for Resources and grant/fellowship information, and the Calendar for minority specific conferences and events. And the new Health Disparities Research.
 


 January-February News

Following are links to summaries at Kaisernetwork.org and The Body; and brief summaries from the CDC HIV/STD/TB Prevention News Update. Note: Links to Kaisernetwork and The Body take you outside this site. You will have to hit your browser's < back button to return.  

 
 

NEW YORK:
"Long Island Rail Road Ads Target Black Homophobia"
Newsday (Melville) , (02.12.2010) Jennifer Barrios; Kathleen Kerr  CDC NPIN Summary
Ads designed to start a conversation about homophobia and homosexuality within the black community debut this month at nine Long Island Rail Road stations, on trains and buses, and across a trestle in West Babylon. Bay Shore-based Long Island GLBT Services Network is sponsoring the ads with help from a $37,000 state health department grant.

“In the African-American community, it’s taboo to talk about gays and lesbians,” said Dale Anthony Edmonston, a black AIDS activist from Hempstead. The results have been disastrous for the community, he said.

African Americans have the highest HIV/AIDS rates among any racial group on Long Island, with 809.4 out of every 100,000 infected, compared with 317.1 for Hispanics and 94.9 for whites, state health department data show. Nationally, black men who have sex with men account for the largest number of new HIV/AIDS cases among blacks, according to CDC.

“HIV/AIDS continues to be a major health concern for all New Yorkers, but especially gay African-American men,” said Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesperson for the health department. “The campaign will help to reduce the stigmas that often create barriers for African-American gay men to seek testing and treatment.”

The Rev. Reginald Tuggle of Memorial Presbyterian Church in Roosevelt said the campaign is misguided. “People who are gay come in all races. And homophobia exists in every community,” he said. “To say that only black people don’t like black people who are gay, that’s silly.” Gays, he said, are not a topic of discussion in many African-American churches because other issues are more relevant.
"Organizations Continue Fight for HIV Prevention"
Black Enterprise , (02.05.2010) Marcia Wade Talbert  CDC NPIN Summary
While prevention efforts have helped to keep the rate of HIV/AIDS stable among African Americans for more than a decade, blacks still comprise 46 percent of those living with HIV in the United States, according to CDC. Blacks represent just 13 percent of the US population.

The infection rate would have been higher if community leaders did not mobilize in 1999 to create the National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, held each year on Feb. 7, said LaMont Evans, CEO of Healthy Black Communities Inc.

“It is not a comfortable thing to have a stable epidemic,” said Evans. Since 1999, “200,000 black people have contracted HIV, which is totally unacceptable because HIV is 100 percent preventable,” he said.

One explanation behind the continuing infections is complacency, as treatment optimism has replaced the association of HIV/AIDS with death, said Dr. Theresa Mack, who primarily treats patients with the disease in New York.

In 2007, AIDS diagnoses decreased among blacks, although the AIDS rate for blacks was higher than for any other race/ethnicity, according to CDC. Blacks were diagnosed with AIDS at 10 times the rate for whites and three times for Hispanics. The rate of AIDS diagnoses for black women was 22 times the rate for white women.

“We will need to have a mobilization around the community in a way that really meets the sense of crisis that we are facing today,” said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. “We need to continue to focus on delivering the most effective prevention and intervention to those in greatest need.”

 

Statement of Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. on Black HIV/AIDS Awareness

African-Americans continue to bear the largest and most disproportionate burden of HIV/AIDS of all racial and ethnic groups in the United States...Today, on the 10th annual National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, we are inspired to improve our efforts to overcome this public health crisis in the black community...


One of the fundamental ways black men and women can reduce the spread of HIV in their communities and preserve their health is by getting tested for the virus during routine medical care, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Physicians. Identifying HIV infection early in its course is critical. A growing number of studies have shown that starting treatment early, while the immune system is still intact, is more beneficial to HIV-infected patients than initiating therapy later in the course of disease.[6],[7]


As a nation, we must knock down the barriers that prevent many Americans, especially African-Americans, from receiving health care in general, and HIV testing, counseling and treatment in particular. An insidious component of this barrier is persistent stigma around homosexuality, HIV-positive status and injection drug use. Fostering acceptance of all people, regardless of lifestyle, and encouraging discussions about the behaviors that increase risk for HIV infection will help create a positive climate for HIV prevention and treatment services in black communities... See the entire statement of Dr. Fauci at http://hivatlas.org/blog/classifieds/19373-statement-anthony-s-fauci-md-black-hivaids-awareness
 


"Older African Americans' Management of HIV/AIDS Stigma"
AIDS Care , (10..2009) Pamela Payne Foster; Susan W. Gaskins CDC NPIN Summary
The study authors aimed to describe HIV/AIDS-related stigma in a population disproportionately affected by the disease, older African Americans living in the South.

Four focus groups were conducted with 24 men and women older than age 50 who had a confirmed HIV diagnosis. Focus group discussions were audiotaped and transcribed for analysis. In addition, two stigma instruments, "Self-Perceptions of HIV Stigma" and "Stigma Impact of HIV," were used to enhance the qualitative focus group data.

Constant comparative data analysis of the focus group discussions revealed four themes related to HIV/AIDS stigma: disclosure; stigma experiences; need for HIV/AIDS education; and acceptance of the disease. Strategies to prevent or decrease anticipated stigma were described, including selective or non-disclosure and not receiving care where they lived. The stigma instruments indicated that the participants had experienced the most stigma related to their internalized shame about being infected with HIV; they had experienced little or no direct stigma.

"The study findings have implications for designing prevention programs and strategies to improve social support for this age group,” the authors concluded.


 

Michigan's Black AIDS Awareness Campaign Kick-off Rallied the Troops

Michigan's African American AIDS Advisory Committee Chair Leon Golson talks about the event sponsored by MDCH and Michigan HIV/AIDS Council, held in Detroit on January 7, to kick-off Michigan's Black AIDS Awareness Campaign that starts February 1.
 

Latino Mentoring Training Institute
The Office of Minority Health Resource Center (OMHRC) is launching the Latino Mentoring Training Institute (LMTI) in February 2010. The purpose of this new project is to increase leadership, mentorship and conflict-management skills among community-based and faith-based organizations working in HIV/AIDS prevention, education and treatment among Latino populations.

Interested organizations must nominate a team of two staff members (senior and junior level) as candidates to participate in this unique skills building training program. See the Career Advancement Section on How to Register and Apply. For more information about the LMTI visit http://www.minorityhealth.hhs.gov/Latinomentor   
 

Race, Age Disparities Among Those with Undiagnosed HIV
A new analysis conducted by Michael Campsmith, DDS, MPH, and his colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explores the estimated proportion of HIV-positive Americans who are undiagnosed across racial/ethnic populations and risk and age groups. POZ
http://www.poz.com/articles/hiv_undiagnosed_race_age_761_17763.shtml

 

See the Archived News

 

 

 

 

 

Black AIDS Awareness Campaign 2010 Resources

Getting the picture: HIV/AIDS and Latinos - PowerPoint Presentation presented at the National Latino AIDS Awareness Day kick-off on September 15 in Detroit.

Detroit Latin@z, is a organization developing in metro Detroit for Latinos/as who are open to the sexual diversity of others. They have a new website at www.detlatz.org

 


 

Summaries, Press Releases and Reports


 

 

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