Florida Report Looks At HIV/AIDS Cases, Death Rates Among Men

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Also Included In: Men's health
Article Date: 03 Sep 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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A new Florida State Department of Health report (.pdf) "shows that for the first time since 1999, Florida has seen a significant decline in AIDS-related deaths," among black, white and Hispanic men, the Orlando Sentinel reports (Quintero, 9/1). The study, called "Man Up: The Crisis of HIV/AIDS Among Florida's Men," includes a breakdown of data by race and county (Winchester, Cape Coral Daily Breeze, 9/2). According to the Sentinel, between "2006 to 2007, the latest year for which AIDS data are available, deaths decreased by 16 percent among black men, 15 percent among Hispanic men and 11 percent among white men."

The Sentinel also reports "that for all groups of men except blacks, the majority of HIV/AIDS cases occurred among gay and bisexual men. Among black men, nearly the same number of cases occurred among heterosexuals (39 percent) as gay men (41 percent)." Ronald Henderson, minority AIDS coordinator with the state Department of Health Bureau of HIV/AIDS and co-author of the study, said, "We wanted to give counties an opportunity to know where they stand. Then they can look at the data and use that data to take action" (9/1). The Cape Coral Daily Breeze reports that "[o]ne in every 123 men in Florida is living with HIV or AIDS," according to the study (9/2).

This information was reprinted from dailyreports.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily U.S. HIV/AIDS Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at dailyreports.kff.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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