African Americans Are Less Likely To Receive HIV Medical Care

To keep driving down new diagnoses, we must ensure that everyone at risk for HIV infection is provided access to effective prevention tools and that people who are living with HIV have unfettered access to quality health care regardless of who they are or where they live.

Latest news reported that black Americans receive less medication against HIV than white citizens. And there are disparities within the disparities: African American men were less likely to be consistently retained in care than African American women. The CDC pointed out that HIV is most often spread by infected people who are not being treated and those who are unaware that they have the virus. The largest decreases occurred among African American women, with a 42 percent decline since 2005 and a 25 percent decline in the most recent five-year period.

“Consistent care matters. It enables people with HIV to live longer, healthier lives, and it prevents new infections”, Jonathan Mermin, MD, director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, said in a press release.

The pattern was similar when retention in care was broken down by transmission category, they found. Fourteen percent were retained in care for only a single year, 19% were retained for 2 years and 43% were retained for all 3 years. From 2011 to 2013, the ongoing treatment for HIV was received by 50% of the whites diagnosed with disease, but in the case of blacks the figure was 38%.

The head of the CDC’s Department of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Eugene McCray said that the CDC has been trying for many years to fight against racial discrimination in black communities.

Search: Racial disparities, blacks, retention in care, HIV, CDC.

In addition, the department announced that State health agencies will receive extra funds in order to extend prevention plans as well treatment for black citizens. Even though African Americans continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV in the United States, accounting for nearly half of all HIV diagnoses in 2014, today we know that our investments in high-impact prevention are starting to pay off. For example, for the first time since the beginning of the epidemic, HIV diagnoses among African American women are falling dramatically. However, this is below the target set by the National HIV/AIDS Strategy to link 85% of HIV-positive persons to HIV medical care.

Reducing HIV-related disparities and health inequities – including the expansion of services to black women and young black gay and bisexual men – is one of four goals outlined in the July 2015 Update to the National HIV/AIDS Prevention Strategy.