More HIV/AIDS info

So I hope you have all taken the initiative and headed over to The Red Pump Project and checked out more stats on HIV/AIDS.

I like to think of myself as a woman who seeks knowledge, and for that, I am a strong advocate of getting out there and learning as much information about as many topics as possible. HIV/AIDS is one of those topics that I have always been adamant in regards to seeking out information. Looking at The Red Pump Project website, it breaks my heart to read the statistics regards minority women and HIV/AIDS. Alot of the information is not new to me, but it saddens me that women are disproportionately affected by this disease. Here are some more facts from the website. You can also go to The Center for Disease Control's website to get more facts as well.

HIV/AIDS & Minority Women

HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects minority women in the United States. According to the 2005 census, Black and Latina women represent 24% of all US women combined, but account for 82% of the estimated total of AIDS diagnoses for women in 2005. HIV is the:

*Leading cause of death for Black women (including African American women) aged 25–34 years.
*3rd leading cause of death for Black women aged 35–44 years.
*4th leading cause of death for Black women aged 45–54 years.
*4th leading cause of death for Latina women aged 35–44 years.
*The only diseases causing more deaths of women are cancer and heart disease
*The rate of AIDS diagnosis for Black women was approximately 23 times the rate for white women and 4 times the rate for Latina women
*In 2006, teen girls represented 39% of AIDS cases reported among 13–19 year-olds. Black teens represented 69% of cases reported among 13–19 year-olds; Latino teens represented 19%.

My sisters!!! Get tested! Protect yourselves! If you choose to participate in sexual activities, remember that it is both partners' responsibility to provide protection! We all know that sex is not the only way to contract HIV/AIDS, so in whatever you do, educate yourselves, protect yourselves, and make sure that you'll be around--DISEASE FREE--for your family and friends.

National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day 3.10.2010

Ok, so I definitely have not been blogging regularly. But this topic is worth coming out of a grad school application hibernation. If you didn't know by now, March 10, 2010 is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. HIV/AIDS is affecting women, and we need to be sure we have all of the facts instead of assuming and speculating. Folks over at The Red Pump Project have done a great job of getting out the facts about HIV/AIDS. I've taken some of those statistics and will share them here as well.

Folks over at Red Pump Project have a great campaign going on right now as well, 500 in 50. The purpose is to get 500 bloggers talking about HIV/AIDS by NWAGHAAD on March 10th. Be sure to show your support on Twitter with hashtag #500in50, as well as on your blogs and Facebook!!!

Here's some basic stats on HIV/AIDS that I pulled from The Red Pump Project website. Click here to get more facts about HIV/AIDS. Educate yourselves!!!

*Number of new HIV infections, 2006: 56,300
*Number of people living with HIV/AIDS: 1.1 million, including more than 468,000 with AIDS
*Number of AIDS deaths since beginning of epidemic: 583,298, including 14,561 in 2007
*Percent of people infected with HIV who don’t know it: 21%