Tuesday, February 9, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 3
Black statistics staggering despite overall AIDS drop
STD prevention will be the focus of sorority event
By Dan Curry
Kansan staff write
African-American women should be concerned about AIDS because the numbers are terrifying, said the president of Zeta Phi Beta, a historically black sorority.
As of 1997, African-American women demonstrated the highest increase in heterosexual transmission of all cases of HIV among women, according to statistics published by the American Association for Health.
"STDs are just so prevalent," said Erica VanRoss, president of Zeta Phi Beta. "AIDS is now the No. 1 killer of Black women 15-24."
In conjunction with Black
In conjunction with history Month, VanRoss and other members of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. will distribute free condoms and information on sexually transmitted diseases from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Kansas Union.
Sidney Hardgrave, executive director of the Douglas County AIDS project, said that while numbers of deaths related to AIDS in both Black and white groups dropped last year, the rate among African Americans dropped less. minority groups
have not benefited as significantly as whites from the treatment regimes," Hardgrave said.
social and economic limitations, do not have the same access to health care as whites, she said.
"One in eight sexually active KU students has an STD. One in 500 college students are infected by HIV"
According to 1996 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates, there were 13,820 women who became infected with AIDS. White, non-Hispanic women composed 2,888 of these cases. Black, non-Hispanic composed 8,147.
But research firms try to recruit minority participants, Hardgrave said.
In addition, drug studies in the field of AIDS have concentrated on white males, so the effects of those drugs in women and minorities is not as well known.
Because of incidents like the Tuscagee Syphilis Study, in which hundreds of African Americans were intentionally infected with the syphilis virus and allowed to go untreated until the the 1970s, there has been a long-term effect of minority groups being distrustful of research programs, Hardgrave said.
Hardgrave said that several factors influenced this discrepancy.
The sorority also will sponsor a talk by Watkins Memorial Health Center health educator Deb Howes at 7:30 tonight in the Kansas Room at the Kansas Union.
African Americans, because of
Howes said her talk would focus on sexually transmitted diseases.
Deb Howes
Watkins health
educator
"One in eight sexually active KU students has an STD. One in 500 college students are infected by HIV," Howes said.
She said that it was important to get information out to all students, regardless of race.
"If they're having unprotected sex, they could be transmitting the virus without knowing it."
Howes said.
Howesa Ericka Morris, Philadelphia junior and Zeta Phi Beta member, said the information tables were necessary to help prevent the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
"A lot of people are very informed, but a lot of people don't know that there are a lot of other diseases you can contract," Morris said. "If they're lucky enough not to catch AIDS, they're dying of other things."
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