HIV/AIDS In Black America: A Public Health Crisis

Of the more than 1 million people in the United States infected with HIV, nearly half are African American men, women and children — even though African Americans make up about 13 percent of the population. AIDS is the primary killer of African Americans ages 19 to 44, and the mortality rate is 10 times higher for African Americans than for whites.

Only 3 percent of the federal domestic dollars spent on HIV go toward prevention.

It’s thought that maybe 20 percent of all African-Americans who are living with HIV/AIDS don’t know that they’re infected. And they don’t know that they’re infected because they haven’t been tested.

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