 REPORT DESCRIPTION:
Through the “Deep South Project,” active in seven southern states (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana), the Commission investigated current conditions in the area to catalyze new assessment and planning initiatives in each state. Over 300 service providers and clinicians, health department staff, advocates, academics, journalists, clergy and community organizers were interviewed. The Commission then co-sponsored seven statewide roundtables on HIV/AIDS prevention and care services reaching Latinos and convened a follow-up meeting in Alabama that brought together researchers, students and providers to outline a research agenda and forge cooperative links.
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EXCERPT FROM THE REPORT'S EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A two-year fact-finding and cooperation program led by the Latino Commission on AIDS in seven southern states found evidence that Latinos are being infected with HIV at rates disproportionate to their share of population and that the trend is accelerating. Although new diagnoses among for African-Americans are the highest in the South, Latino rates are substantially greater than non-Latino Whites while prevention messages and educational programs only sporadically reach them.
Some 2 million Latino residents of the seven states covered by the Commission’s “Deep South Project” face severe limitations in their access to health care of any sort, a major obstacle to HIV/AIDS prevention and care efforts. While immigrants encounter discrimination in daily life, states too often are stepping up restrictions designed to exclude them from government services instead of incorporating new Latino communities into public health-promotion efforts and addressing their specific needs and vulnerabilities.
Existing AIDS prevention organizations and health departments are constrained by a severe shortage of bilingual and bicultural health professionals in the region. Despite the rise of HIV infection among Latino residents in the South, many individuals do not discover their HIV-positive status until they are too sick to benefit fully from available treatments.
DOWNLOADABLE MATERIALS
- Complete Report [click
here]
- Alabama Section [click here]
- Georgia Section [click here]
- Louisiana Section [click here]
- Mississippi Section [click
here]
- North Carolina Section [click
here]
- South Carolina Section [click
here]
- Tennessee Section [click here]
- Recommendations [click
here]
- Resume Ejecutivo (Executive summary in Spanish) [click
here]
PREVIOUS STATEWIDE ROUNDTABLES
ABOUT THE DEEP SOUTH PROJECT
Thousands of workers from Mexico and Central and South America
have settled in the southern United States either as temporary
workers or permanent residents. Provision of all social services
for this population, including HIV prevention education and
care, is lagging.
The Commission's Deep South Project seeks
to compile information about the situation with regard to
HIV prevention and care services currently available to these
new communities in seven states: North and South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana, where
the total Hispanic/Latino population now numbers approximately
2 million. The southeastern United States has the fastest
growing Latino population in the country.
During the second
year of the project, the Commission will develop initiatives
with local partners in each state, based on the gaps identified,
to promote actions to improve these services. So far, one
statewide roundtable on HIV/AIDS and Latinos has been held
(in Louisiana), and another is scheduled for Feb. 21 in Montgomery,
Alabama.
AIDS agencies and other groups are taking action
through creative and innovative strategies to respond to the
needs of these growing communities, learning from successful
efforts employed in reaching and serving other minority populations.
The Commission is encouraged by the positive response to its
Deep South initiative and welcomes new partners to join in
the efforts to reduce HIV transmission among Hispanic residents
and to provide optimum care for those who need it.
The Deep
South project is headed by Tim Frasca, MPH, author of AIDS
in Latin America (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2005) and a veteran
of nearly 20 years of work in the HIV/AIDS field.
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