Race

One might assume that correlations with race would be few and far between. The correlations linking minorities and cumulative AIDS cases was a notion enhanced by particular data, like the percent black in each zip code correlated with cumulative AIDS rates at a coefficient rank of 0.67 (Tables 1.1,1.13; Graph 1.14; Maps 1.1, 1.4). This level was well over the 95% significance level, as well as the 99% level of .451 by a whole .22. The correlation presented a clear-cut relationship between the black minority and AIDS in Pittsburgh. In accordance, it demonstrates how higher populations of black or African American minorities in turn invite high AIDS rates to an area, while a lower black population invites lower AIDS rates for an area. Also, it presents a viable link between AIDS cases and race, providing more cumulative AIDS cases for the black population, and therefore less cumulative AIDS cases for the white populations, implying that AIDS is quickly becoming more prominent in blacks than whites.

The black population may also be linked to AIDS rates through their continued association with poverty (yet another contributing factor to the spread of AIDS) in this area, which is demonstrated in the public transportation sector of Pittsburgh. When comparing the percent of people in each zip code that use public transportation for work to the cumulative AIDS rates for each zip code, the correlation coefficient was 0.58, which provides yet another bond between poverty and race (Tables 1.1, 1.9; Graph 1.8; Maps 1.1, 1.8). This relation is shown more thoroughly in the statistics on who travels via public transport. Seeing as only around 5% of whites in America do not own a vehicle, while a whopping 25% of black or African Americans have no ownership of a vehicle, it is obvious who is utilizing our public transportation systems (U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration). The black minorities are specifically affected by AIDS cases in Pittsburgh: “in Allegheny County, blacks are 12 percent of the population, but in 2002 represented 55 percent of the county’s reported AIDS cases” (Dyer, 1). Through this, we can see the direct relationship between AIDS in African Americans, and the poverty link through public transportation and lack of ownership of a vehicle in correlation to the AIDS rates in Allegheny County.