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Latinos Join Forces to Fight HIV  Hispanic activists, legislators and religious leaders pledged new efforts to fight the HIV epidemic among Latinos, at the first National Latino/Hispanic AIDS Leadership Summit, held Jan. 29?30 in Washington, D.C. Participants called for stepped-up action to prevent, detect, and treat HIV infections in the Hispanic community and agreed on a series of recommendations contained in the National Latino/Hispanic AIDS Action Agenda. Hispanics are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic. They make up 19 percent of the estimated 1.2 million HIV-positive people living in the United States, yet they represent only 14 percent of the U.S. population. Latinos are especially vulnerable to some of the major driving forces behind the epidemic, including poverty, lack of information, poor access to prevention and treatment, unequal gender relations, and stigma and discrimination. Addressing these problems requires action by a wide range of actors, participants said. "The community response is really the only hope we have," said Cristina Beato, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). "And that means governments, faith-based leaders, private enterprises—how we deal with this in the workplace, but most importantly how we deal with it in our own communities and our own families."
The National Latino/Hispanic AIDS Action Agenda outlines the special challenges of fighting HIV in the Latino community and key steps that need to be taken to change the tide of the epidemic. Surveys sited in the document suggest that Latinos have less knowledge of risk and modes of transmission than non-Hispanics, they tend to get tested later and wait longer to get treatment, and they are more likely to interrupt their treatment. Because Hispanics are more likely to be poor and less likely to be insured (than any other U.S. ethnic group), they have more difficulty accessing health care services. To address these problems, the Action Agenda recommends:
The document also calls for social marketing efforts to increase knowledge about HIV risk behaviors and to dispel myths about how HIV is transmitted. This includes collaboration with the entertainment industry to deliver effective health messages through fotonovelas and radionovelas, among others.  Guillermo Chacon, Vice-President/Director of Latino Commission on AIDS' Religious Project, speaks at the summit. PAHO's Beato argued that special efforts were needed to educate young Hispanics about risk and the importance of getting tested, to empower Hispanic women "to negotiate sex and safe sex" and to eliminate stigma against Latinos with HIV, in the Hispanic community at large and among Hispanic health workers. "We need to eliminate stigma, period," she said. "The key has to be prevention, knowing your status, acceptance of our fellow human beings, and honesty in human relationships," said Beato. Other participants in the summit included District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty; congressional representatives Hilda Solis of California, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Charles Rangel of New York and Luis Gutierrez of Illinois; and Christopher Bates, acting director of the Office of HIV/AIDS Policy at the Department of Health and Human Services. For more information visit www.latinoaidsagenda.org. |
March 2008 Feature Articles: News: Announcements: New PAHO |
