The Real Numbers for Erie County
Unbeknownst to me, many zipcodes in Erie County possess a problem with AIDS. The total number of cumulative AIDS cases is 1800, 1675 more than my estimation of 125. As seen in Table 1, zipcode 14222, the inner city of Buffalo, possesses a rate slightly less than two times the national rate. One-fourth of the zipcodes, or 11 out of 44 total zipcodes in Erie County, have cumulative rates greater than the national rate. The areas in Erie County that contain rates 2 to 5 times greater than the cumulative rate for the U.S. constitute poor areas of the city of Buffalo; median income and families living below the poverty line correlate with AIDS. Areas with low median incomes exhibit greater cumulative AIDS cases than those with higher incomes. According to Table 1, the rate of zipcode 14201, 17770, is about 5 times that of the national rate, 339. This area has a median income of merely $16,554 and contains 1,092 families below the poverty line, out of a total population of 13,609. Similarly, zipcodes 14202, which exceeds the national rate by 4 times, and 14203, 6 times greater than the national rate, illustrate a low median income; average income for 1402 is $24,000, for 14203, only $10,333. Zipcode 14204, with a rate 2 times that of the rate for the U.S., possessed a median income of $22,323, with 773 families living below the poverty line. Contrastingly, wealthier areas portray a significantly decreased number of AIDS cases when compared to the above zipcodes. While zipcodes 14031 and 14209 differ in population by only about 200 people, zipcode 14031 possesses a rate of 34, with 3 total cumulative AIDS cases, while 14209 possesses a rate of 854 and 73 cases. In addition to being concentrated in poorer areas, AIDS also demonstrates a disease that strikes blacks to a greater degree than whites. While the black population, 123,529, in Erie County is about 1/7th of the white population, 780,942, according to Table 3, the rate for AIDS cases in blacks exceeds that of whites by 320. Hispanics also demonstrate an increased rate, also shown in Table 3. Comprising 1/30th of the total population of Erie County, Hispanics closely follow blacks in cumulative AIDS rate, with a rate of 357. As seen in Table 7, males encompass a greater percentage of AIDS cases than females in Erie County. The percents of male and female cases in Erie County closely mirror those of New York; males comprise about 3/4th of the cases, 73%, versus females, 26%. AIDS continues to be a debacle in Erie County; the number of people living with AIDS, 901, is half of the cumulative AIDS cases.
Gender, Race, and Mode of Transmission