What Can You Do To Keep Your Community Aware of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic?
An April 2009 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that Americans’ sense of urgency about HIV/AIDS as a national health problem has fallen dramatically and their concern about HIV as a personal risk has also declined, even among some groups at higher risk. Key findings of the survey include:
• The share of Americans naming HIV/AIDS as the most urgent health problem facing the nation dropped from 44 percent in 1995 to 17 percent in 2006 and to six percent now.
• CDC estimates that HIV rates are seven times higher among African Americans and three times higher among Latinos compared to whites. While these groups are more likely than whites to see HIV/AIDS as an urgent problem, fewer say it is a “more urgent” problem for their community now than in 2006 (declining from 23% to 17% of all adults, 49% to 40% of African Americans, and 46% to 35% of Latinos).
• The share of those ages 18-29 who say they are personally very concerned about becoming infected with HIV declined from 30 percent in 1997 to 17 percent today; personal concern among young African Americans declined from 54 percent to 40 percent over the same time period.
• More than half (53%) of non-elderly adults say they have been tested for HIV, including 19 percent who say they were tested in the past year. Testing is most common among adults under the age of 30, with three in ten young adults and nearly half (47%) of young African Americans reporting having been tested in the past year. However, reported testing rates for all these groups have not changed much in the past decade.
So what can you do to keep your community aware of the HIV/AIDS epidemic? Here’s some suggestions:
16. Do you receive the AIDS Council’s quarterly newsletter, The Connection, in the mail? If so, pass along your copy of The Connection to a co-worker, friend or family member. If you don’t receive our newsletter, sign up to receive a copy by clicking here. More importantly, do you read your copy of The Connection?
17. Forward E-Connection updates on to friends, family and co-workers. When you receive e-updates from the AIDS Council, send them on to everyone you know.
18. Visit our website frequently for information and updates. If for no other reason than to read our informative and always-entertaining blog!
19. Check out www.rubbaboyz.net and www.hivoutreach2teens.org. The AIDS Council also maintains two additional websites. Our Project HOPE website, www.rubbaboyz.net, is an HIV/STD awareness and prevention site for the GLBT community. Our brand-new site for teens, www.hivoutreach2teens.org, is about to go live any day now. We’re really excited about this site, because the site’s content, artwork, games and music was all developed by teens for teens. If you’re over age 25, you might not get the language… and that’s ok by us! We’ll have an official notice when the site goes live, so keep your eyes peeled.
20. Tell one person today that you support the AIDS Council. If each and every day you told one person that you support the AIDS Council and its mission to reduce the risk, fear and incidence of HIV infection, and each and every day that person told one person… and so on… and so on… in less three weeks, more than 1,000,000 people would have heard the message. Word of mouth is still a powerful resource in fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS… we just have to empower ourselves to deliver a strong and unified message. Together, we can stop the spread of HIV in its tracks.
I’ll be back again tomorrow for a final list of ways you can help keep the fight against HIV/AIDS front and center in our community’s consciousness.
Richard Nacy is the AIDS Council of Northeastern New York’s Director of Development & Marketing. With more than 13 years’ experience in fundraising, development, community relations and communications, Mr. Nacy has raised millions of dollars for charitable organizations in the Capital Region. He is a 2005 recipient of The Business Review’s 40 Under Forty award and is active in the Capital Region not-for-profit community.