AIDS in the Circle City
Gender
In looking
at the detailed data that I was fortunate to receive, I decided to look at
gender, mode of transmission, and race. To begin, I chose to look at the rates
of HIV/AIDS cases connected with gender. In the beginning, the AIDS epidemic
was one that affected mostly
homosexual men and gender would not have been an interesting fact to examine
when looking into the AIDS epidemic. Now, however, more and more women are
infected every day. In the United States, the percentage of women who have been
diagnosed with AIDS is just under 20%. For a disease that began only 25 years
ago as a male dominated one, AIDS has made considerable headway among the female
population in the US. Indiana and Marion County, although they have slightly
higher male infection percentages, stick fairly close to the national trend when
it comes to gender.
Cumulative AIDS Percentages With Respect to Gender
|
|
National (US) |
State (Indiana) |
County (Marion) |
|
Male |
80.5% |
87% |
85% |
|
Female |
19.5% |
13% |
15% |
As I read more and more about AIDS and looked more and more at the data I received, the more I realized that maybe in my Midwestern town there is more than meets the eye. Women, for example, account for 22% of all new HIV infections in the state of Indiana.[1] When I look at this data, I can’t help but wonder for those 13 years that I was in school, “Where was the education? Where were the numbers? Why is this the first time that I am hearing about this?”
[1] http://www.statehealthfacts.org/cgi-bin/healthfacts.cgi?action=profile&area=Indiana&category=HIV%2fAIDS&subcategory=New+AIDS+Cases&topic=New+AIDS+Cases+All+Ages+by+Sex
