I moved to the Grand Concourse part of Bronx, New York when I was 11 years old from the small South American country of Guyana. My family left Guyana to come to America for a better life and more opportunities but from what I saw there was nothing to be offered here. I had always lived in a house and upon entering the five floor apartment building I want to turn around and run away. I left a place with fresh air and a lot of space to live in a building where everyone practically lived on top of each other and that smelled of rotting food and atrocious smells. I felt as if my life was turned up side down and I wanted to return to the peace and tranquility of the small country I called home. The world I had to face was not a pleasant one at all; drug dealers passing blunts and money in front of my face was a norm. The streets were always crowded with people going to school and work but there was still an undertone of stale alcohol and the smoke of cigarettes and marijuana. Growing up there taught me the responsibility of taking care of myself because I would have to always be on the look out for guns and other weapons, I learned to be vigilant. I saw that these people were destroying their lives by using these different substances, which caused them to do thing that put them in life and death situations. About a year after I had moved there, I was looking at the local news and saw that there were other problems that were taking a toll on the people of the Bronx. The other major stress on the population was the fact that AIDS was a recurring disease which was leading to the disintegration of this population.
Hearing about the disease in that area of the Bronx did not surprise me because it was not my first time hearing about the disease. I have been aware of this disease since I was about 9 years old. I have acquired a basic knowledge of AIDS through my uncle who is a physician and was advocating for HIV/AIDS prevention within the United Nations. I was always very curious so when my uncle started to work with AIDS patients and the AIDS statistics of Guyana, I was very interested. I asked a lot of questions about the contraction and spread of the disease. The numbers and diseases were nonrepresentational until a family member was diagnosed with AIDS. She was diagnosed late by one of Guyana’s top hospitals and suffered tremendously from the various infections she had gotten over the course of the next seven months. Along with her suffering her families suffered more by watching her deteriorate day by day
I figured that it would be interesting to study the statistics of people with AIDS in the different areas of the United States. My first day of classes I was asked to predict the cumulative AIDS cases that had been reported since 1980 for the zip code in which I live. My estimation was approximately 4,000 AIDS cases which was much higher than the actual amount of cumulative AIDS cases in the Bronx zip code of 10458. The actual cumulative AIDS for the Grand Concourse area (10458) since 1980 is 1916 cases. Since then there has been the death of some of those AIDS patients and also the diagnosis of new HIV/AIDS cases which brings the total of people living with HIV/AIDS in 10458 to 1373 people.
I think that the reason my estimation, for the amount of AIDS cases in the Bronx, being so high is a result of what I witnessed while growing up in the Bronx. The different aspects of my community like the people’s smoking and drinking caused me to estimate such a large the amount of AIDS cases. Smoking and drinking were two major deciding factors for me because these habits lead people to make bad decisions, which may lead to unprotected sex, thus contributing to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other harmful diseases. Another aspect that contributed to the high estimation is the fact that there are many different Newspaper articles, in the New York Post and The Daily News, which show high AIDS rates and death rates were not only in the Bronx but also in the entire New York. (2, 3). There is lots of evidence that support the fact that New York like the Bronx has a very high cumulative AIDS cases. For example the cumulative AIDS cases for New York State is 172,051 out of 18,976,457 people while the Bronx has 12,368 cumulative cases out of 1,317,471 people. When calculated the ratios of the cumulative AIDS rates for both the Bronx and New York have a 0.9 percent cumulative AIDS rate. Aside from the cumulative AIDS rate there are also the number of people living with AIDS and HIV. In the Bronx the number of people living with HIV is 7,633 while the number of people living in New York State with AIDS is 41,989. This shows that the Bronx Has 18 percent of the people who are living with AIDS in the state. There is also the comparison of the people living with HIV in New York and the Bronx. The number of people in the Bronx with HIV is 12,368 against the number of people in New York who are living with HIV is 70,353, which shows that the Bronx houses 17.5 percent of the Number of people living with HIV in New York State.
In one case there is a gender difference in the amount of AIDS cases in the Bronx, New York and the entire nation. The statistics show that the accumulative diagnosis for the amount of females in the Grand Concourse area (10458) who have aids is 627 women. This means that the woman constitute approximately 33 percent of the cumulative AIDS cases. The males on the other hand have astounding statistics because the amount of men who have AIDS for the accumulative diagnosis is approximately twice the amount of women who are said to have AIDS. The specific amount of males who have AIDS in the Grand Concourse area (10458) is 1289 men. This shows that men account for 67 percent of the cumulative AIDS cases. When calculated the rate of the spread of AIDS in 10458 for both men and woman together was 2,462 since 1980 per 100,000. The percentage of male cumulative AIDS cases is 66 percent; the female percentage of female cumulative AIDS cases is 34 percent. When the Bronx and New York data are compared it shows that the percentages are approximately equal.
New York State on the other hand shows that out of the people living with AIDS/HIV 31.5 percent of those are females while 68.5 percent of those are males. The Bronx statistics of people living with HIV/AIDS is that 59.5 percent of those are males while 40.5 percent of those are female. The is a difference in the comparison between The Bronx and The New York State but the fact still remains that more men are living with the disease than females.
Another way in which the amount of residents who have AIDS in the Grand Concourse area can be acknowledged is by obtaining statistics of the amount of cases in each race. In the Grand Concourse area there are three major races. Those races are White, Black and Hispanic. Out of these major races the Hispanic population had the highest amount of residents with AIDS, the actual number of Hispanic residents with AIDS is 1125 Hispanics since 1980, and the rate of AIDS among the Hispanics is 2458 Hispanics since 1980 per 100,000 people.
The second ethnic group who has high amounts of people with AIDS in 10458 is the Black population. The black population has 652 residents in the Grand Concourse area with AIDS. The rate of the spread of AIDS in the Black population is 3607 Blacks since 1980 per 100,000 people.
Lastly the White population has the lowest amount of residents with AIDS, in actuality the amount of white residents with AIDS is 131 people since 1980. The rate of AIDS among the White population is 5375 people since 1980 per 100,000 people.
The statistical data and also Newspaper articles support the fact that the Bronx is one of the cities with the highest rates and death tolls of residents due to AIDS. Efforts are being made to help lower the AIDS in the Bronx. (2,3) There are also efforts being made in the entire New York to lower the AIDS rates such as aids awareness walk, (4) fund raisers,(5,7) Quick tests are being preformed,(6) giving out condoms.(8) There is hope in the future that these actions will help lower the AIDS rates in New York and the Bronx.