|
Make This a Holiday for
Donations !
BUY RED
http://www.joinred.com
Donate to Diaspora
Community Services
Click Here
Keep a Child Alive
http://www.keepachildalive.org/
Make this a Holiday for Prevention !
There's no vaccine to
prevent HIV infection and no cure for AIDS. But it's
possible to protect yourself and others from infection.
That means education and avoiding any behavior that
allows HIV-infected fluids — blood, semen, vaginal
secretions and breast milk — into your body. Read
how at:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/
health/hiv-aids/
DS00005/DSECTION=9
|
|
BUY RED!!
Every year I spend a decent amount of money on gifts for my
precious nieces and nephews and other family members. Now
that I have a three year old I am more aware of the
pressures that parents feel to get the right gift.
This year,
I encourage you to buy something that supports a cause.
On October 13, 2006 the singer Bono from U2 launched a
"GO RED"
campaign. The goal is to eliminate the
destruction of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Several vendors
including
Motorola, Gap, Apple and Giorgio Armani have
agreed to donate a portion of their "Red sales" to this
campaign. If you want to donate to an organization try
Keep A Child Alive
or locally try us at
Diaspora Community Services.
Since the early 1990s, we
have supported thousands of HIV positive individuals and
their families. In 2006 alone we provided counseling,
treatment adherence education, case management and advocacy
to over 300 HIV positive individuals. Join us in our work.
You can donate online or send us a check via mail.
Instead of
buying something no one really needs, or buying "just to
buy" for the sake of the holidays - buy something that will
save a life.
Committed
to the struggle-
Carine Jocelyn,
MPA
Executive Director
Diaspora Community Services |
|
|
For Health Care Providers
The City of New York
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
HIV TRAINING INSTITUTE
40 Worth Street, Suite 1602,
New York, NY 10013
Tel: (212) 341-9810
Fax: (212) 341-9818
New York Aids Coalition
http://www.nyaidscoalition.org/
cgi-in/iowa/nyac/home/index.html
Minority Women's
Health Summit
Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill, Washington DC
August 23-26, 2007
For more information: Contact Adrienne Smith 202-690-5884
adrienne.smith@hhs.gov or Frances E. Ashe-Goins 202-690-6373
frances.ashe-goins@hhs.gov |
The Well
Project
The Well
Project
is nationally
acclaimed for their database on Women's Health issues in HIV/AIDS
populations. Their site also features a full section of
information in
Spanish
.
Aids Info NYC
The following hyperlink will lead you to an
astoundingly comprehensive list of sites and information
http://www.aidsinfonyc.org/
links.html
|
We all like to think that we
live in the smartest, fastest, most forward-thinking city in the
world….or at least in the United States. But, sadly, New York City
leads the nation with the highest number of AIDS cases – more than Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and Washington, DC combined.
Manhattan leads
Brooklyn in Borough statistics, but Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights,
Prospect Heights, Brownsville, Flatbush, Bushwick and Williamsburg have
the highest rates in the City.
It’s Time to Face Some Facts
(1).
Approximately 1 in 70 New
Yorkers is infected with HIV, but the proportion of people in different
groups who are infected varies widely:
-
1 in
40 African Americans.
-
1 in
25 men living in Manhattan.
-
1 in
12 black men age 40-49 years.
-
1 in
10 men who have sex with men.
-
1 in
8 injection drug users.
-
1 in
5 black men age 40-49 in Manhattan.
-
1 in
4 men who have sex with men in Chelsea.
The epidemic is
increasingly affecting women, who now constitute a third of new AIDS
cases – up from 1 in 10 at the start of the epidemic. More than 80% of
new AIDS diagnoses and deaths are among African Americans and Hispanics.
Black men in New York City are 6 times more likely to die of AIDS than
white men; black women are 9 times more likely to die of AIDS than white
women. Hispanic men and women are 4 times more likely to die of AIDS
than white men and women.
Wide disparities exist in
HIV across New York City communities. This is particularly apparent in
Central Brooklyn, where the rate of HIV diagnoses is more than twice the
Brooklyn and NYC overall rates. Also, the rate of people living with
HIV/AIDS in this community is twice the Brooklyn rate and 60% higher
than in NYC overall.
Most alarming in these
communities is the lack of testing and lack of condom use among people
with multiple partners. The NYC Department of Health has produced
special community health reports pinpointing the issues:
Central
Brooklyn:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/
pdf/data/2006chp-203.pdf
Flatbush:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/
pdf/data/2006chp-207.pdf
Bushwick/Williamsburg:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/
pdf/data/2006chp-211.pdf
|
HIV/AIDS Infection Among Heterosexual
Women
Today women represent 30% of all new HIV
infections in the US with the majority affecting women who are black or
Hispanic.
HIV is the third
leading cause of death for black men and women under the age of 65. Issues
confronting women, like sexism and racism, can put them at even higher
risk of infection and make it more difficult to get treatment and care.
Most women used to become
infected by
injecting drugs. Today, most women are
infected by an HIV-positive man.
The National Institute of Allergic and Infectious
Disease (NIAID) and a program addressing the epidemic among women and prevention
of infection in their children offer information worth our attention:
Worldwide, more than 90 percent of all
adolescent and adult HIV infections have resulted from heterosexual
intercourse. Women are particularly vulnerable to heterosexual
transmission of HIV due to substantial mucosal exposure to seminal
fluids. This biological fact amplifies the risk of HIV transmission when
coupled with the high prevalence of non-consensual sex, sex without
condom use, and the unknown and/or high-risk behaviors of their
partners.
Women suffer from the same complications of AIDS that afflict men but
also suffer gender-specific manifestations of HIV disease, such as
recurrent vaginal yeast infections, severe pelvic inflammatory disease (PID),
and an increased risk of precancerous changes in the cervix including
probable increased rates of cervical cancer. Women also exhibit
different characteristics from men for many of the same complications of
antiretroviral therapy, such as metabolic abnormalities.
NIAID is studying the course of
HIV/AIDS disease in women and that transmitted to their children
(2)
It is clear that as citizens of the
world, or of New York City or of Brooklyn we have a responsibility to
face. We can all be more serious about prevention; we can all get
past the stigma of testing; we can all work toward better National and
International policies for treatment; and most of us can find a way of
making a donation. Thinking RED
and buying RED doesn't hurt.
Ignoring it will.
BUY RED
http://www.joinred.com
Donate to Diaspora
Community Services
Click Here
(1)
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/ah/ah.shtml
(2)
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/
womenhiv.htm
Written exclusively for Diaspora
Community Services
by Zella Jones
www.marketxmarket.com
|
