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Health conditions common in
African-American women:

Asthma Breast cancer Cancer Cervical cancer Diabetes Glaucoma and cataracts Heart disease High blood pressure High cholesterol HIV/AIDS Infant death Kidney disease Lupus Mental health problems and suicide Osteoporosis Overweight and obesity Pregnancy-related death Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) Sickle cell anemia Smoking Stroke Tuberculosis (TB) Uterine fibroids Violence

Did you know?

You can have HIV and still feel perfectly healthy. The only way to know for sure whether you are infected is to get tested. Knowing your HIV status is one way you can help prevent the spread of HIV.

HIV/AIDS

• More information on HIV/AIDS

HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. HIV weakens your body's defense system, which makes it hard for your body to fight off other health problems that it could normally resist. As time goes on, your body becomes less able to fight off diseases.

Today, women account for more than 1 in 4 new HIV/AIDS cases in the United States. Of these newly infected women, about 2 in 3 are African-American. Most of these women got HIV from having unprotected sex with a man.

AIDS is now the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 25–34. And African-American women are more than 21 times as likely to die from HIV/AIDS as non-Hispanic white women. Some reasons why African-American women are affected by HIV/AIDS more than women of other races include:

• Poverty — One in 4 African-American women lives in poverty, which is strongly linked to HIV risk. People living in poverty also get lower-quality health care in general, which can mean advancing from HIV infection to AIDS more quickly.
• Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) — HIV is most commonly spread to women through sexual contact. Untreated STIs that break the skin, such as genital herpes, give HIV easy access into the bloodstream. African-American women have high rates of many STIs.
• Incarceration of African-American men — Based on current rates of incarceration, nearly one-third of all African-American men will enter prison during their lifetimes. Cycling in and out of the prison system leads to fewer available African-American men in the community to have long-term, faithful relationships and a greater chance of having multiple partners over time. Living in prison also exposes many men to risk factors for HIV. This raises a man's risk of getting HIV in prison and passing HIV to his female partner at home.
• African-American men "on the down low" may also be a factor in the burden of HIV on African-American women. This describes men who have sex with men and women, but who do not identify themselves as gay or bisexual. African-American women may not be aware of their partners' HIV risk factors.

All people should know their HIV status. The only sure way to know if you have HIV is to get tested. That's because you can have HIV and still feel healthy. Once you know your status, you can take steps to protect yourself and stop the spread of HIV:

• Use latex condoms every time you have any kind of sex (vaginal, oral, or anal).
• If you inject drugs and cannot or will not stop, do not share needles, syringes, or other items used to prepare drugs. Always use new, sterile syringes and needles. If you cannot get new ones, clean used ones with full-strength household bleach after each use. After unprotected sex, injection drug use is the next most common way that HIV is spread.
• Be faithful. Only have sex with an uninfected partner who only has sex with you.

Another way HIV is spread is from an infected mother to her baby during pregnancy or delivery. Because many people who are infected with HIV don't know they have it, all newly pregnant women should be tested for HIV as early in the pregnancy as possible, even if they are at low risk. With early prenatal care and treatment, many babies of HIV-positive mothers do not get HIV.

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More information on HIV/AIDS

Read more from womenshealth.gov

• Women and HIV/AIDS — This section of womenshealth.gov provides women with resources and information to get help with HIV/AIDS. It provides information on prevention, testing, living with the disease, opportunistic infections, medical care, pregnancy, and more.
  http://www.womenshealth.gov/hiv-aids/

Explore other publications and websites

• African Americans and HIV/AIDS (Copyright © Kaiser Family Foundation) — African-Americans have been greatly affected by HIV/AIDS since the start of the epidemic. This report provides statistical information on the characteristics of infected individuals and discusses some of the reasons why there is such a high concentration of HIV/AIDS in African-Americans.
  http://www.kff.org/hivaids/upload/6089-03.pdf
• Getting Real: Black Women Taking Charge in the Fight Against AIDS (Copyright © Black AIDS Institute) — This easy-to-read booklet provides statistics on HIV/AIDS in the African-American community and information regarding the current state of AIDS among black women.
  http://www.blackaids.org/docs/12_05_women.pdf
• HIV/AIDS Among African Americans — This publication provides statistical information about African-Americans infected with HIV/AIDS in the United States. It discusses the related challenges to HIV prevention in African-American communities.
  http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/aa/index.htm

Connect with other organizations

• Advocates for Youth
  http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/
• AIDS.gov
  http://www.aids.gov/
• Black AIDS Institute
  http://www.blackaids.org/
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HHS
  http://www.cdc.gov/
• National Minority AIDS Council
  http://www.nmac.org/
• National Prevention Information Network, CDC
  http://www.cdcnpin.org
• Women Organized to Respond to Life-threatening Disease (WORLD)
  http://www.womenhiv.org

Content last updated May 18, 2010.

Resources last updated May 18, 2010.

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