The National HIV/AIDS Strategy 2016 Progress Report updated to 2020 assessed accomplishments since the strategy’s first release in 2010 under President Barack Obama.
Its goals are to reduce new HIV infections, increase access to care and improve health outcomes among people living with HIV, reduce HIV-related health disparities and health inequities, and achieve a more coordinated national response.
New HIV diagnoses decreased seven percent from 2010 through 2013, according to the update. Eighty-seven percent of persons living with HIV are aware of their status, and 3 in 4 persons diagnosed are linked to care in one month, it reported.
However, though diagnoses dropped overall, progress in reducing the diagnosis disparity experienced in the Southern United States stalled, the report continued.
“Testing is important! Knowing your status is important! Staying STD free is important! Over 80 percent of women living with HIV were exposed by their primary monogamous sexual partner—spaces where they are supposed to feel safe and loved,” said Traci Bivens-Davis, chair of the Los Angeles Women’s Collaborative on HIV.
Some women develop the routine of testing while single, but, once in a seemingly monogamous relationship, they interrupt the pattern, she said.
“If somehow you don’t believe you are at risk, then you might be,” she cautioned.
Taking into context the mental, physical, and psychological realities of girls before they become women is crucial to achieving a cure, she said.
“Today, as Black girls are increasingly pushed out of schools and into prisons, we must consider what messages and opportunities for health and esteem are being taught,” Ms. Bivens-Davis said.
How to get Black women out of the “disproportionately affected” category is not an easy answer, because it’s a multilayered problem, agreed Deborah Levine, deputy executive director of Community Development for the New York City-based non-profit ACRIA (formerly the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America).
What’s needed is culturally competent education for Black women, girls and the Black community, and avoid notions simply dealing with the highest of high risks, she recommended.
“Educate across the board, using all the tools that we have in our prevention tool kit, everything from one-on-one peer education, using people who have been infected and affected by the virus to share their stories, to teaching HIV 101, to helping people better understand the policy implications of things that are happening both in their city and state,” said Ms. Levine.
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