Lambda Legal Releases Report On the State of Stigma and Discrimination Against People with HIV on National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

(New York, February 7, 2007) — Today, on National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Lambda Legal released an evidence-based report aimed at providing the facts on the continued stigma faced by people with HIV to policy makers and advocates. Below, Bebe J. Aderson, HIV Project Director at Lambda Legal, makes a statement about “The State of HIV Stigma and Discrimination in 2007: An Evidence Based Report”:

“The HIV epidemic continues to disproportionately affect the black community more than any other racial or ethnic group in the U.S. with rates of HIV infection among blacks alarmingly high. Black Americans represent only 12% of the U.S. population, yet they made up half of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses and half of all Americans living with HIV in 2004. The goals of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day are to address this disparity by increasing testing, education, prevention, and the treatment efforts in the black community. In support of these goals, we are releasing a report on the persistence of HIV stigma and discrimination.

“It has been over 25 years since the HIV/AIDS epidemic began, and yet we have not come nearly far enough in educating the public about HIV and in reducing stigma and discrimination. Stigma affects all people with HIV and hinders important testing, prevention and education efforts. Stigma also exacerbates already existing disparities in access to healthcare.

“As advocates, educators and policy makers do their work, we urge them to look to this report about the lives of those with HIV and use it to inform their decisions. We also urge them to look to the National Minority AIDS Council’s (NMAC) recent report entitled ‘African Americans, Health Disparities and HIV/AIDS: Recommendations for confronting the Epidemic in Black America.’ NMAC’s report includes a five-point plan for confronting the HIV epidemic in the black community.”

Lambda Legal’s report includes:

• Recent studies have identified a pattern of ethnic and racial minorities receiving lesser quality healthcare than non-minorities, even when they have the same type of health insurance. For example, a 2005 multi-state study found that African Americans were less likely to receive highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) than whites, and that this disparity was not due to lack of access to care.
  
  
  
  
  
• A 2005 national study revealed that 33% of male and 46% of female respondents incorrectly believed that HIV transmission could occur through unprotected sex between two uninfected men. Since HIV cannot be transmitted when neither sexual partner has the virus, this evidence suggests the existence of a widely held misperception that men having sex with other men is in itself dangerous or unhealthy.
  
  
  
• A 2006 study of specific-service health care providers in Los Angeles County found HIV discrimination to be prevalent. The researchers surveyed 131 skilled nursing facilities, 98 plastic and cosmetic surgeons, and 102 obstetricians in Los Angeles County to determine how many of these institutions practice a policy of blanket discrimination against people living with HIV. They found that of the institutions surveyed, 56% of the skilled nursing facilities, 26% of the plastic and cosmetic surgeons, and 47% of the obstetricians refused to treat people living with HIV and had no lawful explanation for their discriminatory policy.

View a complete copy of “The State of HIV/AIDS Stigma and Discrimination in 2007: An Evidence Based Report.”

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Contact, Jackie Yodashkin T: 212-809-8585 ext. 229; E: jyodashkin@lambdalegal.org

Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.