No Time to Be Shy Over AIDS Among Blacks

Gail E. Wyatt, M.D., a UCLA psychiatrist and sex researcher, is calling for a new direction on how we approach HIV/AIDS prevention. Commenting in the December issue of Vibe magazine, Wyatt pointed to recent government findings that most new HIV/AIDS cases occur in blacks, who represent only 13 percent of the US population. AIDS is the No. 1 killer among African-Americans ages 25 through 44, and 1 of every 160 African-American women carries HIV, compared to 1 of every 3,000 white females.

Studies show that while African-Americans typically score high on overall self-esteem, the numbers fall when sexuality is the question. "African-Americans are not a depressed population," Wyatt said. "We couldn't have survived this long without high self-esteem." The problem lies in the lack of positive role models for sexual behavior, she said.

For Wyatt, the argument that young people or poor populations don't know what causes HIV transmission doesn't hold. Studies show that 95 percent of all Americans know the basics. The solution, however, is elusive, largely due to the fact that the research has not been done. She estimates that only about 3 percent of HIV/AIDS scholars are black. "African-Americans have long struggled to have the opportunity to define themselves, and the same issue exists in HIV-AIDS research," she said.

Wyatt is the lead researcher on an upcoming multi-university study of 800 African-American HIV-discordant couples (one HIV-positive; one HIV-negative) to discover what sort of communication and support works best. About 75 percent of new HIV cases are due to sexual transmission, a third from heterosexual sex. Yet one study of Atlanta black women showed that almost half didn't use a condom in any sexual encounter in the previous two months, and 60 percent didn't know their partner's HIV status. According to studies by the CDC, the "down low" -- a community of black men who have sex with both men and women -- is also a contributing factor. In a study of 2,000 young gay/bisexual men in the United States, 1 in 3 had unprotected sex with men in the last three months, and nearly 1 in 5 also had sex with a woman.

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