Wisconsin: AIDS, HIV Increase Among Minorities in Madison

Strategies to prevent HIV and treat individuals with AIDS must change with the changing face of the epidemic, participants at an African-American and Latino HIV/AIDS Summit sponsored by the Urban League of Greater Madison were told last week.

The rate of new infections in Wisconsin in 2000-01 was 50.6 per 100,000 people for African-Americans, 22.6 for Hispanics and 3.3 for whites, according to Neil Hoxie of the Wisconsin Division of Public Health. In Dane County, some 35 percent of people reporting new cases of HIV infection in 2001 were African-American, although African-Americans make up only 4 percent of the population. Similarly, Hispanics accounted for 20 percent of new HIV cases, but made up only 3.4 percent of the county population. "In my mind, that's the classic definition of a health disparity," Hoxie said. "There is a disproportionate amount of disease occurring in these communities."

AIDS service organizations emerging in the early 1980s were focused on gay men. As the demographics of those contracting AIDS have changed, agencies have changed little, said Patricia McManus, executive director of the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin Inc. Many AIDS programs fall short of serving minorities, she said, by not taking into account the important roles played by family members and the African-American church.

Most outreach efforts in Wisconsin are in English, not Spanish, creating special difficulties for the Latino community.

Latino youths are at elevated risk "between two cultures," often left to fend for themselves as both parents work to support the family, said Patricia Tellez Giron, a primary care physician in Madison.

Jim Vergenront, director of the HIV/AIDS program for the Wisconsin Division of Public Health, said the state has made funds for AIDS programs available to minority community-based organizations since 1999, as well as trying to help them gain the capacity to provide HIV/AIDS-related programs. The division has set aside $1 million for HIV/AIDS prevention programs by community-based organizations and is receiving proposals, he said.

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