HIV among African Americans

HIV among African Americans

Taken from Centers of Disease and Control

     African Americans face the most severe burden of HIV of all racial/ethnic groups in the United States (US). Despite representing only 14 percent of the US population in 2009, African Americans accounted for 44 percent of all new HIV infections in that year.

    Compared with members of other races and ethnicities, African Americans account for a higher proportion of HIV infections at all stages of disease—from new infections to deaths.

 New HIV Infections

    ·   In 2009, Black men accounted for 70 percent of the estimated new HIV infections among all Blacks.

    The estimated rate of new HIV infection for Black men was more than six and a half times as high as that of white men, and two and a half times as high as that of Latino men or Black women.

    ·   In 2009, Black men who have sex with men (MSM) represented an estimated 73 percent of new infections among all Black men, and 37 percent among all MSM. More new HIV infections occurred among young Black MSM (aged 13–29) than any other age and racial group of MSM. In addition, new HIV infections among young Black MSMs increased by 48 percent from 2006–2009.

    ·   In 2009, Black women accounted for 30 percent of the estimated new HIV infections among all Blacks. Most (85 percent) Black women with HIV acquired HIV through hetero-sexual sex. The estimated rate of new HIV infections for Black women was more than 15 times as high as the rate for white women, and more than three times as high as that of Latina women.

 HIV and AIDS Diagnoses and Deaths

    ·   From 2006–2009, the estimated number and rate of HIV diagnoses among Blacks remained stable in the 40 states with long-term confidential name-based HIV reporting.

    ·   At some point in their life-times, an estimated one in 16 Black men and one in 32 Black women will be diagnosed with HIV infection.

    ·   In 2009, an estimated 16,741 Blacks were diagnosed with AIDS in the U.S., a number that has slowly decreased since 2006.

            ·           By the end of 2008, an estimated 240,627 Blacks with an AIDS diagnosis had died in the US. In 2007, HIV was the ninth leading cause of death for all Blacks and the third leading cause of death for Black women and Black men aged 35-44.