Surgeon General: Health Literacy a Major Problem in AIDS Epidemic

Thursday night at a New Orleans symposium on health problems prevalent among minorities and the poor, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona said a big problem in the AIDS fight is convincing people they are at risk. "In many minority and poor communities, people have not truly accepted that they can become infected with AIDS -- that they are not immune," Carmona told the gathering, which was sponsored by the New Orleans Department of Health and held at Dillard University.

"Few of us have escaped having a friend or family member ravaged by the disease," Carmona said, adding that US blacks and Hispanics are more likely to contract HIV than are whites. "This has little to do with genetics. More than 99 percent of the genetics of everyone, everywhere, are the same. But it has a lot to do with health literacy." Carmona said that while blacks comprise 32 percent of Louisiana's population, they accounted for three-quarters of HIV/AIDS cases diagnosed in 1999. "Take stock of your own work, you own expertise, your personal convictions, and decide what you can do to change these facts," he said.

Carmona said the Department of Health and Human Services is using the "ABC -- Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condoms" approach developed in Uganda. "We are encouraging people to delay sexual activity. We are reminding those who are already in relationships of the importance of faithfulness and monogamy. And we are encouraging those who engage in high-risk behavior to use condoms consistently and correctly, each and every time they have sex," Carmona said.

Back to other news for November 14, 2003