SOWK 300 Computer Applications

LaShauna Crayton Sowk 300 TTH January 12, 2011

HIV/AIDS and African American Women

From Chu, S.Y., Buehier, J.W., & Berkelman,R.L. (1990, July 11). Impact of the human
immunodeficiency virus epidemic on mortality in women of reproductive age, United States.
Journal of the American Medical Association, 264 (2), 225-229.

For both black and whites women 15 to 44 years of age, death rates for HIV/AIDS have
increased steadly since 1985. For black women, the age adjusted death rate increased 4.4 per
100,00 in 1986 to 10.3 per 100,000 in 1988. For white women, the age adjusted death rate
for HIV/AIDS increased from 0.6 per 100,000 in 1985 to 1.2 per 100,000 in 1988. The 1988
death rate for HIV/AIDS in blackwomen 14 to 44 years of age was nine times the rate in white
women of the same age. The majority of deaths in both black and white women occurrred in
women 25 to 34 years of age, for whom HIV- related deaths accounted for 10.6% and 2.6% of
all death in 1988, respectively.

If current mortality trends continue, AIDS can be expected to become one of the five leading
causes of death by 1991. Because women infected with HIV are the major source of infection
for infants with AIDS, these trends in AIDS mortality in women forecast the impact of the
HIV epidemic an mortality in children as well. As the number of pediatric cases increases the
medical and social costs will bestaggering. Babies infected with HIV cost the Medicaid system
$18,000 to $42,000 a year. In 1989, there were 2,825 new cases of AIDS among women of
reproductive age.

Table 1 - Deaths Attributable to HIV/AIDS in Women 15 to 44 Years of Age, United States,

1980 Through 1988.

No. of Death Age- Adjusted

Year Deaths Rates Death Rates
1980 18 0.03 0.03
1981 30 0.06 0.06
1982 36 0.07 0.06
1983 92 0.17 0.16
1984 198 0.35 0.34
1985 360 0.63 0.6
1986 631 1.1 1.02
1987 1016 1.75 1.62
1988 1430 2.46 2.24