Black Palm Beach County residents are more likely to be infected with HIV compared with blacks nationally and statewide. By Dec. 31, black residents comprised 15.1 percent of the county population but 64 percent of county AIDS cases. Nationally, blacks represented 12.3 percent of the population but 40 percent of AIDS cases in 2003, according to CDC. And in Florida in 2004, black residents accounted for 14 percent of the adult population but 47.8 percent of state AIDS cases.

"We can't deny the statistics; it's there," said Lorenzo Robertson, the Florida Department of Health's regional minority AIDS coordinator. "We have to talk about it openly so we get to the point where it becomes a manageable, treatable disease."

Drug abuse does not seem to be a major cause of HIV/AIDS among black Palm Beach County residents, said Robertson. Homophobia complicates the picture, he said, with some men identifying as heterosexual but secretly having sex with men. "I believe it's largely heterosexually transmitted, but some of them are bisexual," he said.

In order to combat HIV/AIDS' disparate impact on black county residents, several informational and testing events will be held throughout February, beginning Feb. 7 on National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. For more information, telephone Robertson at the Broadway Health Center at 561-882-3254.

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