(BW) SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY, CA- 2011 marked 30 years since the first case of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was found in the United States —a case which became an Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
Since then HIV has affected children, women, and men from every age, race and color; among them millions of Latinos.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic is a serious public health issue in the Latino community. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation presently there are about 1.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S, including more than 205,000 Latinos.
The San Joaquin County Community Health Status Report states that in 2009 Latinos made up 23% of AIDS cases and 29% of HIV of the cases in the county.
“In the last five years we seen the numbers increase,” says Robert Lampkins President of the SJC AIDS Foundation located in Stockton.
According to SJC Public Health services there have been 1,423 cases of AIDS reported from 1983 through 2010 in the County.
“It is estimated that for every 1 that we know there is 5 that we don’t, so figure if we know 1,500 that is 7,500 that we don’t know,” explained Lampkins adding, “In the county, probably less than 10% of the people know their status.”
According to a 2011 HIV study produced by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) understanding the Latino culture is essential to finding effective strategies to reduce the spread of HIV.
Socioeconomic factors such as poverty, migration patterns, low education, inadequate health insurance, language barriers are factors that may limit Latinos says a report of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Traditional gender roles in the Latino community may be risk factor for HIV infection. A study in the Journal of Public Health cites marriage as the largest risk factor for HIV infection among Mexican women.
When relationships are strongly defined by gender roles it leads to expectations for appropriate male and female sexual behavior, often resulting in male promiscuity and female tolerance of such.
According to the NCRL strong associations exist between HIV infection and poverty. The poor frequently have low levels of education and decreasing access to risk reduction information says the NCRL, which is particularly higher among monolingual Spanish or native Latin American language speakers.
“Most of the people infected are not in the upper ends of the social economic ladder, most of them are in the lower ends,” says Lampkins. “The majority of the adults infected are in the $30,000 a year income level.”
The goal for Lampkins, who has been with the foundation for over eleven years, and his team is to cut down transmission from one person to the next, “but we have to find the cases first in order to get there.”
Although society has come a long way in dealing with this disease the negative connotation still prevails.
“One of the biggest challenges is people getting over the idea of HIV meaning that you did something wrong, getting them to understand that this is a disease; younger kids have no problem talking about HIV, it is the adults that don’t want to hear it.” says Lampkins
“A lot of people do not have any idea of what is happening in the community, they don’t realize we have a big issue here.”