African American Women and Aids Essay

In the United States one of the leading causes of death for African American women is HIV/AIDS. This paper is on the African American women living in the United States with HIV/AIDS, how the health care policy affects them and the different stakeholders that are being affected by the health care policy. â€Å"HIV is the virus that causes AIDS† (2010). The virus weakens the body’s defense system, this makes it hard on the body to fight off other health problems and as time goes by the body becomes less able to fight off diseases. In the United States there was one in four new cases, which women account for and two in three are African American women who got HIV from unprotected sex with a man. African Americans women in 2009 accounted for 30% of the estimated new HIV infections among all African Americans. African American women were 15 time as high as the rate for white women for new HIV infections, and more than three times higher as that of Latina women (â€Å"HIV among African Americans,† 2011). Sexually transmitted infection (STIs) is another way that HIV is most commonly spread to women through sexual contact. African American women are known to have higher rates of STIs than any other race. Many African American women are known to have had sex with an African American man that was incarcerated at one time or another. These African American men in the community are known to cycle in and out of prison and have become risk factors for passing HIV on to African American woman. Other cases are African American men â€Å"on the down low† these are men who have sex with men and women. Many African American women are not aware of them because they do not identify themselves as gay or bisexual African American women that become pregnant also spread HIV to their unborn infant if they do not receive earlier in pregnancy treatments and prenatal care. A person can feel healthy and have HIV. There are steps to take for protection to stop the spread of HIV. This is by using latex condoms every time you have any type of sex. Also if you inject drugs do not share needles, syringes, or anything to inject the drug into you with anyone. By following these steps you can make the different in stopping the spread of HIV.