Women

Women

HIV and AIDS were originally thought to affect mostly gay men. However, women have always been affected too. And even though more men than women have HIV, women are catching up. In fact, if new HIV infections continue at their current rate worldwide, women with HIV may soon outnumber men with HIV.

Featured Links

Addressing the Intersection of HIV/AIDS, Violence against Women and Girls, and Gender-Related Health Disparities (PDF)

From the President’s Working Group on the Intersection of HIV/AIDS, Violence against Women and Girls, and Gender-Related Health Disparities

HIV and Pregnancy: Health Information for Patients (PDF)

From AIDSinfo

Addressing HIV Disparities Among Women of Color In The Southern United States: The HIV Primary Care Integration Series (PDF)

From HealthHIV

Recommendations for Use of Antiretroviral Drugs in Pregnant HIV-1-Infected Women for Maternal Health and Interventions to Reduce Perinatal HIV Transmission in the United States

From AIDSinfo

Community Mobilization for a Women’s Self-Care Health Promotion Campaign(PDF)

From the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center, School of Nursing, University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey

HIV/AIDS Surveillance in Women (updated slide set

From CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention

Chlamydia Screening Among Sexually Active Young Female Enrollees of Health Plans—United States, 2000-2007

From CDC's MMWR Weekly; April 17, 2009 / 58(14);362-365

What Are Black Women’s HIV Prevention Needs?

From the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, University of California San Francisco

What Are Male-to-Female Transgender Persons’ (MtF) HIV Prevention Needs?

From the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, University of California San Francisco

QuickStats: Death Rates for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Disease Among Women, by Race and Age Group—United States, 1987–2005

From CDC’s MMWR Weekly; March 27, 2009 / 58(11);286

HIV/AIDS among Women Who Have Sex With Women (PDF)

Fact sheet from the Divisions of HIV/AIDS Prevention of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention

HIV/AIDS and African American Women: A Consultation Supporting CDC's Heightened National Response to the HIV/AIDS Crisis among African Americans: Meeting Report

From CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention

Elimination of Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission (EMCT) in the United States (PDF)

From CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention

HIV/AIDS Surveillance Supplemental Report: Enhanced Perinatal Surveillance—Participating Areas in the United States and Dependent Areas, 2000–2003

From CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention

What are Women Who Have Sex With Women’s HIV Prevention Needs?

From the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies University of California at San Francisco

HIV Infection in Women

From National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

Women and HIV/AIDS in the United States

HIV/AIDS policy fact sheet from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

Female Condom

BLACK WOMEN AND HIV/AIDS

What are Black women’s HIV prevention needs?

Are Black women affected by HIV?

Yes. Black women and men in the US are hard hit by HIV, and have been since the beginning of the epidemic. In 2006, Black women accounted for 61% of new HIV cases among women, but make up only 12% of US female population. The rate of HIV diagnoses for Black women is 15 times the rate for White women.

Black women also have high rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), which can facilitate transmission of HIV. Among Black women in 2006, the rate of chlamydia was 7 times higher, gonorrhea 14 times higher, and syphilis 16 times higher than the rate among White women.

These numbers and statistics, however, don’t show the richness and diversity of Black women’s lives. Black women can be White collar and working class, Christians and Muslims. They live in inner-city and suburban neighborhoods, are the descendants of slaves and recent Caribbean immigrants. They work, go to school, raise families, fall in love. HIV among Black women is not simply about individual behavior, but a complex system of social, cultural, economic, geographic, religious and political factors that combine to affect health.

Who are the women at risk?

Having STDs other than HIV, having unprotected vaginal and anal intercourse with an HIV+ person, and sharing injection drug equipment with an HIV+ person are the highest risk factors for HIV transmission for Black women or anyone. Another risk is not knowing your partner’s risks, such as injection drug use, having other current sex partners or unknown HIV status. In 2005, 80% of Black women were infected with HIV through heterosexual contact and 18% through injection drug use.

Young women and teens are particularly affected. In 2004, HIV was the leading cause of death for Black women aged 25-34 years. Black teenagers (ages 13-19) accounted for 69% of new AIDS cases among teens in 2006, but make up only 16% of US teenagers.

What affects risk?

When it comes to having safer sex, women are often more concerned about pregnancy prevention than HIV/STD prevention, and are less likely to use two methods of protection (such as the pill and condoms). Black teenage girls are more likely to use implant and injectable contraception (the patch, Norplant) than White teenage girls, making them less likely to use condoms that protect against HIV. Similarly, Black women, especially women living in low income areas, are more likely to use sterilization as contraception.

HIV prevention often takes a back seat when women are struggling to secure jobs, food, housing or child care. Most HIV/AIDS cases among Black women occur in inner city and rural areas where many women live in poverty and have unstable employment and housing. Women in these neighborhoods are more likely to be homeless and trade sex for money or shelter, use substances (alcohol, crack, heroin), be dependent on a man for support, and experience violence or trauma. All of these affect a woman’s ability to refuse sex, use condoms or clean needles and protect herself from HIV.

High incarceration rates in the African American community also affect HIV risk. Incarceration decreases the number of men in the community, which disrupts stable partnerships and promotes higher-risk concurrent partnerships (having more than one sexual partner in a given period and going back and forth between them).

The ratio of men to women is much lower among African Americans than among any other ethnic group in the US. High rates of death among Black men due to disease and violence as well as high rates of incarceration impact the community in many ways, including reducing the number of potential partners. This promotes women with low-risk behaviors partnering with men with high-risk behaviors.

Do Black women know their risk?

It’s been reported that many Black women don’t know that they are at risk for HIV, because many women report no or unknown transmission category when testing for HIV. Black communities traditionally have a high degree of social mixing between higher and lower risk individuals, which means that Blacks are more likely to know and date a partner with a risk history. Ultimately, it may not be that Black women aren’t aware of their risks, but that risk is more accepted because of this social mixing.

Black women understand they are at risk, as shown by HIV testing rates that are higher than any other racial group. Almost two thirds (65%) of Black women ages 15-44 have ever been tested for HIV. Black women are twice as likely to be tested for HIV in the past 12 months (25%) than are White women (13%).

Because of the disproportionately high rates of STDs and HIV in the Black community, the likelihood of being exposed to an infected person is much higher for Black women and men than it is for people living in other communities. This means that even though Black women are engaging in fewer risk behaviors than White women, in order to not get infected, Black women have to do so much more than other women to protect themselves.3

What’s being done?

There are currently 11 interventions for Black women and adolescents that have been approved by the CDC as best or promising evidence or are in the Diffusion of Effective Behavioral Interventions (DEBI) project. In addition, many agencies across the US provide innovative HIV prevention services with and for Black women that see women as a whole, not just their sex and drug use, and as part of a community.

Supporting women with incarcerated partners is important. HOME (Health Options Mean Empowerment) worked with women whose male partner was being released from state prison. HOME trained women visitors to be peer health educators, both for other women visitors and women in their communities. HOME included community-building activities (group lunches for women waiting to enter the prison); general-health workshops (on diabetes, blood pressure, obesity and smoking cessation); sexual-health workshops on HIV/STDs; health fairs; and facilitated community referrals and support services geared to the needs of women who visit men in prison. Women who participated reported decreased unprotected sex, increased HIV testing and increased communication with their partners about HIV-related topics.

A recent large, multisite trial described the Eban HIV/STD Risk Reduction Intervention, a program for African American couples who are HIV-serodiscordant. Eban addresses individual, interpersonal, and community-level factors that contribute to HIV risk behaviors at mulitple levels in 8 weekly 2-hour sessions. Four sessions focus on communication, problem solving and decision making around safer sex within the couple. Four group sessions focus on changing peer attitudes and norms, de-stigmatizing serodiscordant couples and increasing support for couples in the community.

To reach Black women in their own communities, many agencies have implemented HIV prevention interventions in beauty salons and nail parlors, which provide a safe environment to access HIV information and condoms. In Durham County, NC, Project StraightTalk has been training barbers and beauticians to educate their clients about STDs/HIV since 1988. The project offers annual trainings, gives condoms and educational materials to each salon twice a month, and produces personalized posters for the salons.

What needs to be done?

The African American community will continue to be severely affected by HIV unless prevention and care efforts are combined with efforts to address the root causes of disease. Black girls, teenagers and women need to be supported within their social environment to build stronger relationships, families, neighborhoods and communities and reduce their risk for HIV and other diseases. HIV prevention programs for women’s male partners can benefit both men and women.

Effective HIV prevention programs should be developed and run by Black women and provide job training, couples counseling, food banks, housing assistance, mental health services, substance abuse treatment and family services. Government and other funding agencies need to understand that all of these things are HIV prevention and should be funded as such.

Says who?

1. CDC. Subpopulation Estimates from the HIV Incidence Surveillance System—United States, 2006. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 2008;57;985-989.

2. CDC. Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance, 2006. November 2007.

3. Aral SO, Adimora AA, Fenton KA. Understanding and responding to disparities in HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in African Americans. Lancet. 2008;372:337-340.

4. Rose MA, Telfair Sharpe T, Raleigh K, et al. An HIV/AIDS crisis among African American women: A summary for prevention and care in the 21st century. Journal of Women’s Health. 2008;17:321-324.

5. HIV/AIDS among women. Fact sheet prepared by the CDC. August 2008.

6. Black Americans and HIV/AIDS. Fact sheet by the Kaiser Family Foundation. October 2008.

7. Abma JC, Martinez GM, Mosher WD, et al. Teenagers in the United States: Sexual activity, contraceptive use, and childbearing, 2002. Vital and Health Statistics. 2004;23.

8. Mosher WD, Deang LP, Bramlett MD. Community environment and women’s health outcomes: Contextual data. Vital and Health Statistics. 2003;23.

9. Fullilove RE. African Americans, health disparities and HIV/AIDS. Report prepared by the National Minority AIDS Council. November 2006.

10. Harawa N, Adimora A. Incarceration, African Americans and HIV: advancing a research agenda. Journal of the National Medical Association. 2008;100:57-62.

11. Adimora AA, Schoenbach VJ, Doherty IA. HIV and African Americans in the Southern United States: sexual networks and social context.Sexually Transmitted Diseases. 2006;33:S39-S45.

12. Anderson JE, Chandra A, Mosher WD. HIV Testing in the United States, 2002. Advance Data for Vital and Health Statistics. 2005;363:16.

13. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Updated Compendium of Evidence-Based Interventions, 2007.

14. Grinstead O, Comfort M, McCartney K, et al. Bringing it home: design and implementation of an HIV/STD intervention for women visiting incarcerated men. AIDS Education and Prevention. 2008;20:285-300.

15. NIMH Multisite HIV/STD Prevention Trial for African American Couples Group. Eban HIV/STD Risk Reduction Intervention: Conceptual basis and procedures. Journal of AIDS. 2008;49:S15–S27.

16. Lewis YR, Shain L, Crouse Quinn S, et al. Building community trust: lessons from an STD/HIV peer educator program with African American barbers and beauticians. Health Promotion Practice. 2002;3:133-143.

Prepared by Prepared by Pamela DeCarlo and Olga Grinstead Reznick PhD, MPH; CAPS

March 2009. Fact Sheet #65E

Special thanks to the following reviewers of this Fact Sheet: Victoria Cargill, Deidra Carrol, Marcia Glasgow, Bridget Hughes, Sharon Johnson, Marlene LaLota, Marianne Marcus, Leisha McKinley-Beach, Maureen Miller, Adeline Nyamathi, Tara Regan, Celeste Watkins-Hayes, Wendee Wechsberg.

Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the University of California San Francisco should be cited as the source. Fact Sheets are also available in Spanish. To receive Fact Sheets via e-mail, send an e-mail to listserv@listserv.ucsf.edu with the message “subscribe CAPSFS first name last name.” ©March 2009, University of CA.

Whom should I reach out to?

Whom should I reach out to?

Below are suggestions of organizations that you may want to reach out to:

 Women- and family-focused support groups

 Churches and faith-based institutions

 Colleges and universities, especially if they have medical schools or public health

programs

 Health centers, clinics, and hospitals

 Businesses, including fitness centers, drug stores, and grocery stores

 Non-profit organizations, such as local sorority chapters or local fraternity chapters

 National Affiliate Groups and local chapters, such as La Raza, Jack and Jill, Urban League,

and Medical

 Private organizations

What should I ask organizations to do?

Organizations often look for causes to support their community and can:

 Help organize and staff an event

 Provide a venue to hold the event

 Donate materials, including HIV/AIDS information or supplies for women and girls

 Offer volunteers, including health care professionals to administer screenings, or guest

speakers who have knowledge of HIV/AIDS and/or work to educate women and girls

 Promote the event by displaying posters, posting information to their websites, or

sending information through their social media channels

 Issue press releases and conduct other media outreach