New Orleans Ministers' HIV Testing Campaign Helps Address Stigma In Black Community, Editorial Says

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Article Date: 28 Aug 2008 - 11:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

The seven New Orleans black ministers who participated in the Clergy Community HIV Testing Day earlier this week are "helping to remove the fear and stigma that prevents people from learning their HIV status," a New Orleans Times-Picayune editorial says. According to the editorial, the ministers broke "what they described as the black church's silence on HIV/AIDS" when they publically took HIV tests in front of their congregations and "urg[ed] congregants to do likewise." Sixty-three percent of the newly diagnosed HIV cases in New Orleans last year were among blacks, the editorial says. Early prevention is a "critical message, especially for" blacks, the editorial says, concluding that the ministers' "actions spoke volumes to a vulnerable population" (New Orleans Times-Picayune, 8/27).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.