National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS launches campaign to fight AIDS at HBCUs

GREENSBORO, NC (Oct. 27, 2009) – The National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS (NBCLA) has launched an initiative that aims to step up the fight against HIV/AIDS on historically black campuses around the nation. The kick-off was at Bennett College for Women.

C. Virginia Fields, CEO and President of NBLCA, announced the program earlier this month at a Community Activism Forum sponsored by Bennett College at the Sheraton Four Seasons.

Fields laid a framework for a partnership with Bennett that will include a culturally competent, age-appropriate, peer led prevention education for students. The first phase will be a campus/community needs assessment, gathering input through student surveys, interviews and student rap sessions. In later phases, the effort will educate, equip and mobilize students.

Fields led a workshop in which she noted that she once marched with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and even spent time in jail for her civil rights activism. While economic and social disparities remain, she said, “Today’s civil rights are about health care disparities.”

She noted that African Americans are the hardest hit by HIV/AIDS in the U.S. More than 1 million Americans are living with HIV/AIDS, nearly half of whom are Black, she said. According to CDC, in 2006 there were 56,000 new HIV infections, and 67 percent of them were among Blacks and Latinos.

As one of only two historically black women’s colleges in the nation, Bennett is uniquely positioned to address the issue of HIV/AIDS in the African American community and its impact on women, Fields said. She noted that HIV/AIDS disproportionately impacts Black women:

• Black women account for 64 percent of all women living with HIV/AIDS.  In 2006, Black women also accounted for 61 percent of new HIV cases among women, though they comprise only 12 percent of the U.S. female population.

• HIV is the leading cause of death for Black women aged 25-34 years and they are 23 times and 4 times more likely to be living with AIDS than White women and Latinas, respectively.

• Eighty percent of newly diagnosed infections among Black women occur from heterosexual contact.

• One in every 30 Black women will be diagnosed with HIV during their lifetime.

While statistics bearing directly on HBCUs are limited, CDC statistics suggest that HBCUs are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS:

• Although Black teens (ages 13–19) represented only 15 percent of U.S. teenagers, they accounted for 68 percent of new AIDS cases reported among teens in 2007.

• African-Americans accounted for 60 percent of HIV/AIDS diagnoses among 13-  to 24-year olds in 2006.

• More HIV infections occurred among adolescents and young adults 13–29 years old (34 percent of new HIV infections) than any other age group.

• Young adults and teens, under the age of 30, continue to be at risk, with those between the ages of 13 and 29 accounting for 34 percent of new HIV infections in 2006, the largest share of any age group.