The Facts

 Once I accepted the fact that AIDS does exist in my county, I looked deeper to discover exactly who was infected and how they became inflicted with this disease.  Prior to looking at the data, I assumed that two-thirds of the HIV/AIDS cases would be male.  My prediction was close, for 72.55% of the AIDS cases in Somerset County were males and 27.45% were females [Table 4].  I assumed that a majority of the cases would be male because I was given the impression that most people who have AIDS are homosexual.  Since I had the perception that AIDS was a gay disease, I assumed that the highest mode of transmission in Somerset County would be male-to-male sexual contact; this prediction, however, was not as accurate.  As shown in Table 5, 30.32% of the cases were transmitted by MSM, 30.02% from injection drug use and 26.40% by heterosexual contact.  I was surprised by the low percentage of MSM, but perhaps it is not as common because there is not a gay community within Somerset County.  The IDU percentage also made me wonder where in my county there is an issue with drug use, for I had no idea a problem existed.  After separating the cases by gender and mode of transmission, I analyzed the HIV/AIDS cases by race.  Due to my impression of AIDS, I speculated that most of the cases would be found in the African American population of Somerset County, because those areas appear to be less affluent.  As it turned out, the white population had the most cases, followed by the Black or African Americans.  It is important, however, to take into account the population of each race in the county.  Even though the white population had the most cases, the cumulative HIV/AIDS rate for African Americans was 1576 per 100,000, whereas the rate of the white population was only 170 per 100,000 [Table 6].  Since the cumulative HIV/AIDS rate in the United States is 418 per 100,000 [Table 2], it became evident to me that there is a definite problem for African Americans in Somerset County.  Perhaps the less wealthy areas where the African American population is greater, there is a lack in the quality of education programs.  I feel there is a correlation between quality of education and drug use, for students who do not have a heavy workload have less responsibility and therefore have more of an opportunity to get involved with drugs.  This ultimately relates back to the high transmission percentage of IDU in Somerset County.

Even though the total number of HIV/AIDS cases in Somerset County [Table 2] appears small in comparison to other US counties, its subdivisions’ cumulative rates [Table 3] exceed that of the United States [Table 1].  The subdivisions I analyzed were Bound Brook, North Plainfield, Franklin and Somerville.  Although I live in Basking Ridge, I have visited each of these towns, which enabled me to predict which subdivision would have the most AIDS cases.  Of all the towns, Bound Brook is the smallest so I therefore assumed it would have the least amount of AIDS cases.  Technically my prediction held true, for it had just 52 cases [Table 3]; however, its cumulative rate was 512 per 100,000 [Table 3] which is greater than that of the United States and the rates of both Franklin and North Plainfield.  Bound Brook provides transportation into Newark, a well known poor area in New Jersey; perhaps drugs are transported from Newark, which would increase one’s chance of exposure to AIDS.  As for the other towns, I have only traveled to Franklin and North Plainfield for Varsity Soccer games.  My game at Franklin, in which I scored my first Varsity goal, was played on a hard, dusty, field with little grass.  North Plainfield, on the other hand, had a brand new stadium with a turf field, surrounded by a 6 lane track and an enormous scoreboard that appeared to inform the whole town that we had lost 3-0.  From the quality of the soccer fields alone, I predicted Franklin would have the most AIDS cases; the statistics revealed that Franklin had over twice the amount of AIDS cases than North Plainfield [Table 3]. As a whole, I did not think any town in Somerset County would have a high AIDS rate, for according to the U.S. Census Bureau Somerset County, NJ is ranked as the second richest county in the United Sates (Source 3), and I assumed AIDS was not an issue in wealthy areas.

While analyzing the cumulative rates of each subdivision, I found myself focusing on the numbers in Somerville, New Jersey.  Somerville is approximately fifteen minutes from where I live and is the home of my family’s favorite restaurant, Friday’s.  I drive through Somerville on my way to the mall, the movie theater and to my high school’s rival, Immaculata High.  Since I am in Somerville practically every week, I was shocked to discover that its cumulative AIDS rate [Table 3] is nearly three times the national rate [Table 1].  As I tried to make sense of this statistic, I remembered seeing a man in tattered, stained clothes next to the busy Somerville circle selling flowers and holding a tin can.  I then suspected that there are homeless people living in Somerville who may be contributing to the high number of AIDS cases.  Although all this data was supposed to answer one question, it left me asking more. In need of understanding why I knew so little about AIDS in my community, I began to analyze the impact the media made on my first impressions of AIDS.

A Definition     The Facts     Newspaper     Television     A Final Word

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