The information presented indicates the black community has the highest prevalence of AIDS on the national, state, and even county level. This suggests that clearly AIDS awareness programs should target this community in hopes that with more knowledge about the disease and HIV virus the rates may start to decrease.

 

    Featured in the table above is the data for the white, black and hispanic races in the United States, Maryland and Montgomery County, displaying the number of AIDS cases, the populations, and the resulting rates. The information provided for the United States shows a clear prevalence of AIDS within the black community, with a rate almost 10 times higher than the white population and more than 2 times higher than the hispanic population. Moreover, with a population size very close to that of the hispanics, this suggests there is certainly cause for alarm regarding AIDS in Black America as there are significantly more cases of AIDS among the same number of people.  In comparison, the white population has almost the same number of cases as the blacks, yet, the much larger population allows the rate to be so much lower.

    But how does the state of Maryland compare? The rates of the white, black and hispanic races show parallel trends to the rates found on the national level, with the blacks having a dramatically higher rate of AIDS cases than both the hispanic and white communities. However this time the rate of blacks is instead about 7 and 8 times as higher than the hispanic and white AIDS rates, respectively. This information demonstrates there is perhaps an even greater problem of AIDS in the black community in Maryland than in the United States alone. But, in contrast, the rate for the hispanic community in the state is almost two times less than the national rate, suggesting the AIDS disease is not infiltrating the hispanic population in Maryland.

    The rates for Montgomery County continue to depict analogous trends for each race compared to the state and the nation. While the white and hispanic rates have very similar numbers to those found in Maryland, fortunately the rate among the black population seems to be slightly lower in Montgomery County than for Maryland and the United States. Still, this rate is about 5 times as high as the white and hispanic communities in the county. Furthermore, the blacks and hispanics have a similar population size, but once again the blacks have nearly six times as many cases indicating there is, indeed, still an issue of AIDS among this population.

 

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