The AIDS pandemic presents one of the most unique medical and social dilemmas of our time. This is especially true for African-American women who are suffering from the silence of AIDS and dying in the shadows. HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for African-American women of childbearing age in New York and New Jersey, and, 72% of the women's population diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.
HIV/AIDS, cast as the health catastrophe of lifetime, and originally characterized as an epidemic of gender (male) and sexual orientation (homosexual), is disproportionately claiming the future of African-Americans. Demographically, African-Americans make up 12.3 percent of the U.S. population yet are disproportionately represented among the poor, the homeless, and those with indicators of poor health status.
Although the overall number of AIDS cases reported in 1994 (80,691) declined from the number reported in 1993 (106,618), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 58,428 cases of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome among adult and adolescent women (13 years and older). The proportion of cases among women has steadily increased from 7% in 1985 to 18% in 1994. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and other illnesses due to HIV infection have been the fourth leading cause of death among women in the United States ages 25-44 since 1992 (CDC, 1994). Among AHANA (an acronym for African-American, Hispanic, Asian American, and Native American), African-American lives are claimed at a rate six times higher than any other group.
Carrying the burden of the increase are African-American women and children. The 1994 AIDS case rate per 100,000 population for adult and adolescent women was 62.7 for African-Americans in comparison with 3.8 for Caucasians. African-American women's HIV infection cases totaled 10,218 in 1994 in comparison to 4,075 for Caucasian women. African-American women acquire AIDS at a rate of 14 times higher than Caucasian women. Information from the HIV Survey in Childbearing Women found that an estimated 7,000 HIV-infected women gave birth to infants in 1993................
