SASI Delegates in Washington
December 9, 2011: SASI Delegates meet with Dr. Ron Valdiserri, Director of HIV/AIDS Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and with Christopher Bates, Executive Director, Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
SASI delegates meet with Jeffrey Crowley, Director, Office of National AIDS Policy and Greg Millett, Senior Policy Advisor, Office of National AIDS Policy
Why focus on the South?
Here are a few facts
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, East Texas
- The South leads the country in new diagnoses of HIV — in 2009 half of all new diagnoses were in the South, and the diagnosis rate was the highest of any region in the US.
- The South is over-represented in HIV prevalence ( individuals living with HIV), at 43% of cases in the US, even though the South’s population is only 37% of the nation’s
- Death rates in the South are among the highest in the US — 9 of the 10 states with the highest age-adjusted HIV case death rates were in the South (Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, South Carolina)
- Rural Populations — 64% of individuals living with an AIDS diagnosis in rural areas live in the South. Providing HIV care in rural areas may be particularly challenging due to barriers such as lack of transportation, shortages of medical providers, and fear of discrimination and confidentiality breaches
- Race/Ethniticy – African Americans are disproportionally represented among new HIV diagnoses (2005-08) in the South. 50% of men and 71% of women diagnosed with HIV in the South were African American.
