Black Americans and HIV/AIDS Prevention Strategy
Dear Obama,
Hello my name is Michele Bader Reed FROM Las Vegas, NV. In 2011 you made a call to all action for all leaders to stand up join the fight against the pandemic rate of new HIV/AIDS infections, in particular young
Black Americans. I am happy about the many changes you have made to the PEPFAR Blueprint and
Strengthening the Economy for Those Living With HIV/AIDS and Fighting the HIV/AIDS Epidemic
The President’s Fiscal Year 2014 Budget demonstrates that we can make critical investments to strengthen the middle class, create jobs, and grow the economy while continuing to cut the deficit in a balanced way.
The President believes we must invest in the true engine of America’s economic growth – a rising and thriving middle class. He is focused on addressing three fundamental questions:
How To make America once again a magnet for jobs, the Budget invests in high-tech manufacturing and innovation, clean energy, and infrastructure, while cutting red tape to help businesses grow.
To give workers the skills they need to compete in the global economy, it invests in education from pre-school to job training.
To ensure hard work is rewarded, it raises the minimum wage to $9 an hour so a hard day’s work pays more. do we attract more jobs to our shores?
How do we equip our people with the skills needed to do the jobs of the 21st Century?
How do we make sure hard work leads to a decent living?
The Budget presents the President’s plan to address each of these questions.
The Budget does all of these things as part of a comprehensive plan that reduces the deficit and puts the Nation on a sound fiscal course. Every new initiative in the plan is fully paid for, so they do not add a single dime to the deficit.
The Budget also incorporates the President’s compromise offer to House Speaker Boehner to achieve another $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction in a balanced way. When combined with the deficit reduction already achieved, this will allow us to exceed the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction, while growing the economy and strengthening the middle class. By including this compromise proposal in the Budget, the President is demonstrating his willingness to make tough choices and his seriousness about finding common ground to further reduce the deficit.
Continue to Support the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) and Expand Investments in Prevention, Care, and Research.
The Budget expands access to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment activities and supports the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy to reduce HIV incidence; increase access to care and optimize health outcomes for people living with HIV; and reduce HIV-related health disparities.
By providing resources for Affordable Care Act implementation, the Budget will support increased health care coverage for thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS and expand access to HIV testing for millions of Americans.
The Budget makes smarter investments by prioritizing HIV/AIDS resources within high-burden communities and among high-risk groups, including gay men, black Americans and Latino Americans.
Compared to 2012, the Budget increases domestic discretionary Health and Human Services (HHS) HIV/AIDS funding by $73 million and Veterans Affairs (VA) HIV/AIDS funding by $155 million.
Overall, total U.S. Government-wide spending on HIV/AIDS increases from $27.8 billion in FY 2012 to $29.7 billion in the FY 2014 Budget.
Increase Funding for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Service Integration.
The Budget includes $833 million, an increase of $10 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to continue implementing the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy by preventing HIV/AIDS among high-risk communities using evidence-based interventions.
The Budget redirects $40 million from less effective activities to support a new $40 million Community High-Impact Prevention initiative to improve systems that link persons recently diagnosed with HIV to care.
The Budget also increases funding for data collection by $10 million to improve timeliness of data and invests $10 million to build the infrastructure and capacity that State Public Health Departments and community-based organizations will need to bill private insurers for infectious disease testing.
MOJO SAFE SEX STREET TEAM
Target (or high-risk) population
BLACK COMMUNITY
YOUTH
HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN
GAY AND MEN WHO HAVE SEX WITH MEN.
Intervention
SOCIAL MEDIA
COMMUNITY EVENTS
STREET
RESTROOM
NIGHT CLUBS
GAY NIGHT CLUB
DOWNTOWN LAS VEGAS
THE STRIP
WEST LAS VEGAS
FAITH BASED ORGANIZATION
SELL AND PROMOTE MOJO CONDOM KEY CHAIN HOLDERS AT A DISCOUNT RATE TO OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FUNDED AND PRIVATE FUNDED CDC RECOMMENDED STRATEGY ACTION TAKERS
SAFE SEX WITH CONDOM USE-BE READY, STAY READY AND DON'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT YOUR MOJO 3 CONDOM KEY CHAIN HOLDER DESIGNED TO CARRY, STORE, EASILY ACCESS CONDOMS ANYTIME, ANYPLACE, IN ANY ELEMENT.
Key Resources
From CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention
Empower Young Men—videos on HIV prevention with young men of color who have sex with men
From CDC
Black Gay Men/MSM and HIV/AIDS: Addressing the Epidemic in a Changing Environment (PDF)
From the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD)
From the American Journal of Public Health; Supplement 2, 2009, Vol 99, No. S2
Greater Than AIDS campaign(public information campaign to address the AIDS crisis facing Black Americans)
From a group of partners including CDC
Act Against AIDS Leadership Initiative (AAALI) - Harnessing the Strength of African-American Organizations to Fight HIV and AIDS
From CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention
From CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention
From the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
HIV Infection Among Young Black Men Who Have Sex with Men—Jackson, Mississippi, 2006–2008
From CDC's MMWR Weekly; February 6, 2009 / 58(04);77-81
From CDC's Division of STD Prevention
The State of AIDS in Black America 2012
From the Black AIDS Institute
What Are Black Women's HIV Prevention Needs?
From the University of California San Francisco's Center for AIDS Prevention Studies
AFRICAN AMERICAN FACTS
Fast Facts
- African Americans are the racial/ethnic group most affected by HIV.
- Young African American gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men are especially at risk of HIV infection.
- New HIV infections among African American women decreased for the first time in 2010
- Abstain-Take the time to build meaningful relationships
- Be Safe-No blood Exchange-Be Faithful
- Condom Sense Correct and Consistent Condom Use is IMPERATIVE
- Let's Get it Together!
fSTATS AND FACTS FOLKS
The ninth in a series of articles about the Road to AIDS 2012, a 17-city tour that seeks to define the state of the U.S. epidemic and that leads up to the International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., in July 2012. The eighth installment reported on the New York meeting.
Nearly two years after the White House released the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS), several Las Vegas residents who attended a town hall meeting on April 16 at theProgressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada complained that they knew little, if anything, about it.
An audience made up largely of community members, community-based organization leaders and legal professionals discussed some of the challenges in the fight to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic. While the NHAS has established several goals designed to aid in that cause, town hall participants said that there has been little effort to ensure that the local community understood the national strategy in the first place. Younger members of the audience were particularly frustrated with the lack of communication about the strategy. "Being that I'm in the 18-25 age range, I've never heard of the strategy," said one audience member. "I think that's a problem."
But the lack of information wasn't unique to a specific age group. "I haven't heard much about it, either," stated an older audience member. "I think we're doing a great disservice, since it's a year out and that information hasn't been disseminated to the general population."
The NHAS was released on July 13, 2010, giving the United States a blueprint for fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Its goals include reducing the incidence of HIV, increasing access to care and reducing HIV-related health disparities. Although the document lays out a plan, it stresses that communities must work together if the plan is going to be successful, pointed out A. Toni Young, moderator of the event and executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Community Education Group. If communities are largely unaware of the document and its tenets, the likelihood of success decreases, Young said.
Many reasons were given for the lack of knowledge about the strategy. Town hall participants pointed to a disconnect between the federal government and those on the ground in Nevada. "There is no congruency between what's said in Washington and what comes down to the state and local communities," one town hall participant said. "You can take a paragraph that was written in D.C. and it becomes different paragraphs in different parts of the country."
Town hall participants also complained that local organizations don't communicate effectively with one another. One participant complained that the larger community-based organizations are more likely to "cannibalize" the smaller organizations than to collaborate with them.
Others complained that local organizations didn't represent the needs of all community members. For example, one audience member said that the local community-planning group does not have much youth representation, so young people don't feel that their needs are being met. "As a youth, I feel like we get leftovers," the participant said. "I just turned 22. I feel like we'd be more interested if we had someone around our age rather than someone who's 40 telling us what to do."
Once frustrations were expressed, several town hall participants expressed a desire to work better together in the future. Others stressed the importance of being more proactive to make sure all voices are heard. For example, rather than complain about having no voice, "young people have to apply to be on the community-planning group," said Young.
While the lack of knowledge about the strategy may have been a hindrance to past efforts, town hall participants must move forward with the new information and figure out how to apply it to their local community, said panelist Marsha Martin, director of the Urban Coalition for HIV/AIDS Prevention Services. "Talk to your agency about the strategy," she said. "Figure out what the Nevada strategy is."
http://www.southernnevadahealthdistrict.org/boh10/0422m.php
BLACK AMERICANS
African American communities continue to experience higher rates of other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) compared with other racial/ethnic communities in the United States. Having an STI can significantly increase the chance of getting or transmitting HIV. The poverty rate is higher among African Americans—28%—than for any other race. The socioeconomic issues associated with poverty—including limited access to high-quality health care, housing, and HIV prevention education—directly and indirectly increase the risk for HIV infection, and a
ffect the health of people living with and at risk for HIV infection.Lack of awareness of HIV status can affect HIV rates in communities. Almost 100,000 people in the African American community in 2009 were unaware of their HIV status. Late diagnosis of HIV infection is common, which results in missed opportunities to get early medical care and prevent transmission to others.
Stigma, fear, discrimination, homophobia, and negative perception
s about HIV testing can also place too many African Americans at higher risk. Many at risk for infection fear stigma more than infection and may choose instead to hide their high-risk behavior rather than seek counseling and testing.
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TB Challenge: Partnering to Eliminate TB in African Americans - Spring 2008
From CDC's Division of Tuberculosis Elimination
Subpopulation Estimates from the HIV Incidence Surveillance System --- United States, 2006
From CDC's MMWR Weekly; September 12, 2008 / 57(36);985-989
CDC Report: A Heightened National Response to the HIV/AIDS Crisis among African Americans
CDC Media Facts: Fighting HIV among African Americans (PDF)
From CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention
From CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention
Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Diagnoses of HIV/AIDS—33 States, 2001-2005
From CDC’s MMWR Weekly, March 9, 2007 / 56(09);189-193
Meeting of National Partners to Address HIV/AIDS in African American Communities - Summary (PDF)
From the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD)
Consultation to Address STD Disparities in African American Communities (PDF)
From CDC's Division of STD Prevention, June 5-6, 2007 Meeting Report
From CDC’s MMWR Weekly June 22, 2007 / 56(24);602-604
HIV/AIDS among African Americans
Fact sheet from CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention
From the American Journal of Public Health, June 2007, Vol. 97 No. 6
Resources from the Black AIDS Institute
Reports, clinical trial listings, and links from the Black AIDS Institute
African Americans: Information for Prevention Partners
From Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, includes sections on transmission, prevention challenges, resources, and bibliography
HIV/AIDS and African Americans
From the Office of Minority Health
What Are Black Men’s HIV Prevention Needs?
From Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, University of California at San Francisco
Health Disparities Experienced by Black or African Americans – United States
From Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s MMWR
Be Safe: A Cultural Competency Model for African-Americans (PDF)
From the AIDS Education and Training Center National Multicultural Center
Systemic Review of HIV Behavioral Prevention Research in African Americans
From HIV InSite
What CDC Is Doing?
What CDC Is Doing
CDC and its partners are pursuing a High-Impact Prevention approach to advance the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and maximize the effectiveness of current HIV prevention methods. Activities include:
Phases of the Act Against AIDS campaign, including Take Charge. Take the Test. to encourage African American women to get tested for HIV; Testing Makes Us Stronger, to increase HIV testing among black gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men; and Let’s Stop HIV Together, to address stigma and raises awareness.
The Care and Prevention in the United States (CAPUS) Demonstration Project that supports increased testing and optimizes linkage to, retention in, and re-engagement with care and prevention services for newly diagnosed and previously diagnosed racial and ethnic minorities with HIV.
· HIV prevention projects for community-based organizations to provide effective HIV prevention services over 5 years to gay, bisexual, and transgender youth of color and their partners.
· Awards to health departments to support the goals of High-Impact Prevention. These awards direct resources to the geographic areas of greatest need and prioritize the HIV prevention strategies that will have the greatest impact on the US epidemic.
· A second 3-year expanded HIV testing program to increase HIV testing among African Americans. The Expanded Testing Initiative includes 30 health departments and focuses on increasing HIV testing among African Americans and Latinos as well as MSM and injection drug users of all races and ethnicities.
· The MSM Testing Initiative to establish and evaluate an HIV testing and linkage-to-care program that will identify MSM with HIV who were previously unaware of their infection and link them to HIV medical care.
Support and technical assistance to health departments and community-based organizations to deliver effective prevention interventions for African Americans, such asWILLOW, d-up: Defend Yourself!, and Mpowerment.