February 7th is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.
While the devastating murder of George Floyd sparked widespread awareness about what it means to be Black in North America, it does not do Black communities any justice to stop the conversation at police brutality. Raniya Copeland, president and chief executive of the Black Aids Institute, says more attention needs to be paid to both disparities in social determinants of health and medical racism if we want to address silent killers that Black people are more likely to lose their lives to. These silent killers include a long list of chronic diseases and epidemics, notably the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Despite making up only 12% of the US population, Black people account for 43% of cases and almost half of HIV related deaths (the highest mortality rate for all racial/ethnic groups). Worse still, is that this disparity appears to be growing rather than shrinking with time, as demonstrated by new rates of HIV diagnoses eight times higher than that of whites and more than double that of latinos. Black men are the most affected demographic overall, and Black women have the highest incidence out of women in the US. Black gay/bisexual men are over represented compared to other LGBTQ men and represent over half of new HIV diagnoses among all young queer men aged 13 to 24. Young Black people are also at a much higher risk than others, with startling differences between age of diagnosis compared to other racial/ethnic groups translating to a greater number of years of stolen life. According to the CDC, 1 in 7 Black people with HIV are unaware of their status.
These facts and figures are all part of a much larger story, one of systemic racism tracing from generations of marginalization leading to poverty stricken Black communities in the US. A long history of Black oppression has ultimately culminated in increased exposure and poorer access to appropriate treatment, most significantly due to higher rates of drug addiction and imprisonment. We must address root causes of health disparities in the Black community if we are to address Black communities consistently being hit hardest by epidemics all over North America.
Here in Canada, the situation is not much different. A summer report revealed that people of color accounted for 83% of COVID-19 cases in Toronto, and black people accounted for 21% despite making up just 9% of the city’s population. Kwame McKenzie is the CEO of Wellesley Institute, a think tank working to improve health equity in the GTA. He relates this to racialized people in Toronto being more likely to be affected by poverty, crime, inadequate housing/nutrition, and resorting to unsafe means of obtaining an income. McKenzie explains that racism often wreaks havoc on black communities in a passive and neglectful way rather than an active one when it comes to their health and well being: “Discrimination is not necessarily about what you do. It's often about what you don’t do.” It’s time to ask ourselves what is being done by our governments to protect Black people from continuing to bear the brunt of epidemics. Better yet, it's time to ask ourselves why we are accepting so little action on such a devastating matter.
With breakthroughs in HIV/AIDS research such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a daily prevention medication for high-risk persons, and antiretroviral therapies (ART), which virtually eliminate transmission and offer an opportunity for normal life, there is no excuse for allowing the HIV/AIDS crisis to steal more Black lives. This February, choose to spread the word about National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day using the hashtag #NBHAAD. Choose to stand in solidarity with the Black struggle in North America in all the ways it manifests, visibility and invisibly. Because Black Lives Matter.
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