The University of Maryland health center has been collaborating with students, various nonprofit organizations and county departments of health to raise awareness about HIV, a persistently severe epidemic in the Washington metropolitan area.
According to a 2009 report by the district’s Department of Health, the HIV rate in Washington is higher than the national average at 3.2 percent, with black males as the most affected population at 7.1 percent. Jenna Beckwith, the university’s sexual health program coordinator, said the district not only has a nationally high rate, but that “we have the highest rate of HIV in the entire world.”
The district’s rates can be compared to those of West African countries, according to a report by Public Radio International, which also dubbed the district as “America’s AIDS capital.” To put these rates in better perspective, PRI stated that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization perceive a 1 percent infection rate as the beginning of a serious epidemic.
Dedra Spears-Johnson, the executive director of a nonprofit organization in Prince George’s County called Heart to Hand Inc., said the county receives a “substantial spillover” of the district’s HIV-infected population due to its close proximity.
“The numbers are highest within the Beltway along the district’s border,” Spears-Johnson said. “Prince George’s County as a whole has about 5500 people living with HIV.”
A website specializing in AIDS and HIV information called AVERT.org attributed the area’s high infection rates to poverty.
A quarter of African-American families in the district are living in poverty and have less resources in general,” said Beckwith. “Something like poverty, homelessness, and not having access to health care or proper nutrition can impact someone’s well-being and their general ability to maintain the virus.”
(Photo credit to Chelsea Jordan)
AVERT.org also attributed the high rates to a lack of comprehensive sex education within schools. Beckwith agreed and said there is always room for improvement, even though she believes that Washington is at the forefront of sex education.
“They still have a lot of work to do,” Beckwith said. “We are barely touching the iceberg when it comes to the sex education we are providing children.”
“Oftentimes, conversations with parents can be uncomfortable, and what we learn from friends or movies can provide serious misconceptions,” Beckwith added. “We need comprehensive sexual health and sexuality education that is age-appropriate and continuous through the whole spectrum, maybe even through kindergarten to the 12th grade.”
The university has taken extra measures to educate its students about HIV by working to raise awareness, especially last semester around World Aids Day on Dec. 1. Beckwith said about 100 student volunteers, or peer educators, walked around campus for an entire week to teach other students about HIV, promote awareness and hand out condoms.
“World Aids Day is globally recognized, but why raise awareness on one day when you can make it a week?” said Beckwith. “My job is to make it a year-round awareness.”
Sarah Singer, a junior women’s studies and English major who volunteers as a peer educator, believes the most effectual way to educate young people about HIV is through their peers. “I think it’s really important for me as a student to help other students because we’re more receptive to people we can relate to,”Singersaid. “We’re people in their class, we live everyday lives like they do, and we’re at risk just as much as they are. It can further legitimize the information.”
Despite the fact that Singer is also a student at the university, she said it couldstill be difficult to approach the topic with other students.“Raising awareness for HIV is very challenging, and I find that I’m met with more resistance than when I talk about any other STD or pregnancy,” Singer said.
Beckwith said there are several stigmas that have created barriers in the effort to raise awareness among the general public.“People still associate HIV with gay people or the African-American population, when we should know that any and all of us aresusceptible to the virus,” Beckwithsaid. “It’s not the person but the behavior that puts people at risk.”
The university has not only made a significant effort to raise awareness and better educate its students about HIV, but is also giving them the chance to learn their status through free testing. The free HIV testing events are open to students as well as non-students, and the health center has already hosted five this semester.
“It’s one thing to say we offer testing here and another thing to say we have testing here for free,” Beckwith said. “We want to break down as many barriers as we can to give people access to the care they need.”
Beckwith said these testing events are either funded by the health center itself or the Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties’ departments of Health, who are funded by the federal and state governments to administer such tests. County-based and community-based nonprofit organizations such as Heart to Hand Inc. have also been involved in organizing these events.
“We are willing to partner with anyone with the need or desire to provide HIV tests,” said Spears-Johnson. “Once they set up the facilities, we pretty much take care of everything else.”
Spears-Johnson said the university’s testing events also offer free syphilis screenings.
Pamela B. Creekmur, the acting health officer of the Prince George’s County Department of Health, insisted that people should take advantage of the free testing on campus and find out their own status, especially with numbers as high as they are in the area.
“It is 100 percent preventable if people are abstinent or having safe sex, limiting their partners, knowing their status and knowing their partner’s status,” Creekmur said. “People should really not become complacent.”
According to Creekmur, the department’s motto this year for World AIDS Day also emphasized the importance of getting tested.
“Testing reveals, waiting conceals,” Creekmur said. “If you don’t know your status, you could not only have it but could also be unknowingly spreading it.”