Estimates for AIDS in Erie County

My estimates of the cumulative AIDS cases in Erie County, NY were very deviant from the actual numbers.  I deemed AIDS to be a minor issue in both Erie County and the city of Buffalo; I held onto the folly that AIDS spread in impoverished and unsanitary areas, and Buffalo was rated the 3^rd cleanest city in America in a 2005 issue of Reader’s Digest.  My neighborhood and zip code, East Amherst, comprise the suburbs of Buffalo, NY.  The majority of the developments tangential to my area represent the more affluent sections of Buffalo.  In 2005, East Amherst was ranked the 41^st finalist in CNN’s Money Magazine’s “Best Places to Live”.  Because of the well-off nature of my zip code, I was sheltered from encounters with AIDS victims and consequently did not perceive AIDS as a major health crisis.  Due to my educational and religious environment, I encounter primarily white people; the white population in Erie County, 780,942, greatly exceeds the population of blacks, 123,529.  Whites comprise a salient 82.18% of the population in Erie County, while blacks comprise solely 13% of the total population.  Due to the Caucasian dominance in my county, combined with my specious notion that AIDS prominently affects blacks in Africa, I underestimated the amount of cumulative AIDS cases not only for my zip code, but also for zip codes surrounding mine.  While I approximated the cumulative AIDS cases for Erie County to be 125, in actuality, there were 1800 cumulative cases reported.  My estimation for cases in zipcode 14222, the center of the city of Buffalo, also diverged greatly from the true number.  In my assessment, I took into account the large black population in the city.  AIDS basically affects blacks, I thought; therefore, a little less than half of the cases must be in the inner city, about 50.  However, the city of Buffalo reported 83 cases.  Not only was my estimate incorrect, but my theory that the city possessed about 40 % of cases proved to be false.  Many areas in Erie County, clustered in proximity to one another, suffer a more serious problem for cumulative rates of AIDS, including 2 to 3 times that of the national rate.  My estimation of cumulative cases for Erie County in totality and one area of Erie County faltered along with my estimation for the percentage of cases that were female.  Due partly to a lack of knowledge of the extensive impact of AIDS on gay men, I overestimated the percentage of female cases; my approximation, 75 %, was three times more than the actual percentage, 26 %.