Pennsylvania: Surrendering Anonymity to Spread the Word About AIDS

Clarisse Jordan, 35, Sheila Taylor, 41, and Pam Smith, 46, differ in background, personality and age. Yet they all have this in common: Each gave up her anonymity and went public with the private pain of living with HIV. All three work with the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force sharing frank messages of prevention with women and girls. More and more, women of color are their target audience.

While African Americans comprise only 13 percent of the U.S. population, they are diagnosed with HIV at 10 times the rate of whites. Blacks account for half of all new HIV cases, of which 72 percent are black women, according to CDC. For the past two years, AIDS has been the leading cause of death for U.S. black women ages 25-34.

Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force reports that 93 (20 percent) of its 463 clients today are black women; in 1990, less than 2 percent were.

Jordan first spoke out a few years ago at Peabody High School in East Liberty. It was emotionally overwhelming to speak at the school where she was infected as a 16-year-old athlete, "But I did it because I did not want anybody else to be in my situation," she said.

Smith, who has been HIV-positive for 17 years, went public eight years ago. "Somebody has to step up to the plate. ... If I can save one other person's life, I feel like I have accomplished something," she said.

Taylor, who was diagnosed with HIV seven years ago, said, "It's important for me to help somebody not to get the virus." She added, "Another baby doesn't have to be born with this virus. Mine wasn't. Another African-American female does not have to get this virus. There's so much information out there. We have to talk about it and empower ourselves. We can't pretend it doesn't exist."

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