National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

March 10 is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, a time to celebrate the progress we’ve made and acknowledge how much further we have yet to go in the fight to #EndAIDS. Women–particularly women of color and transgender women–continue to experience disparities in access to prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. Among all women living with HIV in the U.S., 61% are African American. Transgender women are 49 times more likely to be living with HIV than the general population.

Women need better access to and awareness of HIV treatment and preventive methods such as PrEP, a treatment regimen that reduces the risk of contracting HIV by more than 90 percent. In New York State, although PrEP use among Medicaid recipients increased by 20%, 82% of new PrEP users were male, and 37% were white. In a recent survey of women of color conducted by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, only 13% of women of color in high-diagnosis neighborhoods in NYC had heard of PrEP. By preventing new HIV infections, PrEP not only enables people to live healthier lives, it also prevents hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to treat each individual living with HIV.

At Amida Care, we do everything in our power to make sure that our members have access to culturally competent health care. This National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day #NWGHAAD, let’s recommit to advocating for women so that they can live their best lives.