AIDS in Indiana County

Project One: Perceptions

Introduction

As I lounged around at home, anticipating my return to Colgate after a long, relaxing winter break, I contemplated the seriousness of AIDS in my rural, western Pennsylvania community.  “AIDS,” I concluded, “is not a problem here.”  After all, while there are many drug users in my town, few of them use needles to get a high.  And although there are a few homosexual males in the area, the conservative climate discourages many of them from even coming out openly, let alone in attending gay night clubs, nonexistent and virtually unheard of in my community, and the lack of sexual partners puts a stop to any want for promiscuity.  My town, Homer City, population 1,844¹, is overwhelmingly Caucasian; the risk group of African-American women could hardly pose a problem in a county that’s 96.5% white². “AIDS is not a problem here,” I said.  And fortunately I was right.

Upon arriving to my first Core 116 AIDS class, I was asked how many cumulative AIDS cases were in my county, Indiana County, and in two adjacent counties, Westmoreland and Armstrong (Appendix A).  Not expecting AIDS to be a large problem, I guessed low numbers: 15 for Indiana County, 20 for Westmoreland and 18 for Armstrong County.  In the cases of Indiana and Armstrong counties, I underestimated, guessing about half of the actual number of cases; it’s not so dramatic once you realize that I was only off by 18 cases in Indiana (there are 33 total), and 20 in Armstrong (totaling 38).  I was more inaccurate when it came to Westmoreland, grossly underestimating from the 215 cases³.  However as I heard other students, mostly from large cities, sharing their numbers, my belief was once again affirmed—AIDS is not a problem where I live (Table 1).

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