Tennessee is only 17% black, but 68% of their HIV infections are black. Don’t mix.
Men who have sex with men still make up the majority of new infections nationwide, 53 percent. Among them, black men between 13 and 29 had more new infections than any other group. With Hispanics, the most infections also occurred in this youngest age group. But among white men, the most new infections were found in those between 30 and 39.
The CDC has designated HIV a crisis in African-American communities. While blacks account for 14 percent of the population in the United States, they make up almost half of Americans living with the virus. In Tennessee, 645 black people were diagnosed with HIV in 2009,more than double the 300 white people newly diagnosed.
Black men on the “down low,” who keep secret about having sex with other men, and the higher incarceration rate for black men are factors for the spread of the disease among African-American women, said Alcendor and Sanders.
“There are certain things that happen in prison that men won’t talk about,” ….