Black Women's Burden: An Epidemic of HIV

That's why, experts say, it's important not to assume that your partner or past partners are not infected. "AIDS does not discriminate. Unsafe sexual practices and unsafe drug behaviors with someone who is infected can and will lead to HIV infection," says SharenDuke, executive director of the New York City-based AIDS Service Center, a community organization that provides HIV testing, mental health services, medical care, support groups, and other services. "It has crossed all racial, cultural, and class backgrounds."

Yet many women make the mistake of having unprotected sex with an unsafe partner. Some, like 24-year-old Marvelyn Brown, a Tennessee native who now lives in New York City, say they didn't ask their sexual partners to wear condoms because it made them feel special that the men involved trusted them enough to forgo protection. In her recent autobiography, The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful, and (HIV) Positive, Brown says that when she contracted HIV at age 19, she didn't care enough about herself to require that her boyfriend consistently use condoms. "If you love yourself, you can protect yourself," she says, "and that eliminates HIV from the beginning." Yvonne Gooden also believes she contracted HIV through unprotected heterosexual sex. The Yonkers, N.Y., mother of two was diagnosed with HIV in 1993 and AIDS in 1995. And like many others, she thinks that low self-esteem played a role in her not protecting herself during sex.

Women should feel "empowered to make sure that their partner uses a condom," says Raymond Martins, medical director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit organization focused on HIV/AIDS treatment. "Especially in the black community, that doesn't seem to always be the case."

Gooden's disease has left her feeling fatigued much of the time. Although medical strides have been made in making HIV/AIDS manageable, black women like Gooden still bear a tremendous burden of associated death and disability. In recent years, HIV/AIDS has been among the top three causes of death for African-American females ages 25 to 34. Some of those deaths might be preventable if HIV-positive people were consistently diagnosed early in the course of their infections, before AIDS arises. To improve HIV detection, the CDC recommended in 2006 that everyone ages 13 to 64 get tested at least once. For years, experts have been advocating routine HIV testing in people who seek treatment for other sexually transmitted diseases. Michelle, 44, a busy New York City mother of three who once refereed basketball games in her spare time, was diagnosed with HIV at age 33 when she sought treatment for chlamydia. She'd contracted both infections from her fiancé. "I was infected because of love," says Michelle, who asked that her real name be omitted to protect her children's privacy.

While the CDC recently upped its estimate of new HIV infections occurring annually nationwide, Washington and New York City have been dealing with the issue for years—with minority groups and men who have sex with men especially hard hit. African-Americans comprise 57 percent of Washington's population but account for 81 percent of new HIV infections. And 90 percent of new HIV infections in women occur in black women, according to the District of Columbia Department of Health.