CDC Announces Efforts to Eliminate HIV Infections Among High-Risk Groups

A new national public education campaign, “Testing Makes Us Stronger,” promoting the benefits as well as importance of HIV testing will be launching in five cities next week: Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, New York and Oakland. Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hope that the implementation of this campaign will lead to increased testing and general awareness among the disease’s most affected group: black, gay or bisexual men between 18 and 29.

The CDC announced plans for the new campaign during the National HIV Prevention Conference on Tuesday. Deputy Director of the organization’s Behavioral and Social Science Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention Richard Wolitski shared the results of several studies aimed at narrowing down the target groups for further initiatives to drop the rates of new HIV infections in the U.S.

A previous study published in the PLoS ONE online journal showed that young, black men who have sex with men (MSM) was the only group that had a statistically significant increase of new infections at 48 percent between 2006 and 2009. The results of this study were linked to issues concerning the increased presence of poverty and discrimination among the specified demographics.

A more recent study concludes that the three groups with the highest risk of contracting HIV are gay and bisexual men with an infection rate of 19 percent, intravenous drug users at 9 percent, and low-income heterosexuals at 2 percent. The study consisted of 30,000 individuals in 21 cities, with an overall infection rate of .47 percent. What’s not so surprising is that these results seem to coincide with both the results and the possible causes mentioned in the previous study. Individuals within these groups are obviously not considering preventative measures as well as they should be.

Researchers were even more intrigued by the similar behavioral statistics among these high-risk groups. Nearly half of the subjects from each group claimed to be unaware of their infection status, which somewhat explains the increased chance of spreading HIV. In addition, alarming proportions of each group reported involvement of risky conduct, such as unprotected sex and sharing needles, in the past year.

Results such as those have acted as the inspiration for initiatives to prevent new infections of HIV. The CDC launched the five-year, multi-faceted campaign called Act Against Aids in April 2009 in order to raise awareness of HIV in America and reduce risks of infection.

“Testing Makes Us Stronger” is just one of the many campaigns to reinforce this initiative. Supporters are not only hoping to increase awareness among young, black MSM, but more importantly, to increase early testing among this group. Early testing leads to early diagnosis, which leads to a slow onset of AIDS and decreased chances of future transmission of the disease.

The campaign will consist of compelling messages embedded in online and print ads, social media web sites, posters, billboards, and outreach programs. We can only hope that these messages will end up in front of the right people before the issues only continue to grow.