Today is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day! Thanks to the Red Pump Project, bloggers across the internet are spreading the know. This is the biggest year yet, with some 1,000 sites participating. Kudos to founders Luuvie and Karyn for all their successes in the past year and to working to promote such an important cause!

Take a look at some of the statistics surrounding women and HIV/AIDS:

• There are approximately 1.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. & almost 280,000 are women
• Among those who are HIV positive, 35% of women were tested for HIV late in their illness (diagnosed with AIDS within one year of testing positive)
• HIV is the 5th leading cause of death in women in the United States, ages 25-44
• High-risk heterosexual contact is the source of 80% of these newly diagnosed infections in women
• According to a CDC study of more than 19,500 patients with HIV in 10 US cities, women were slightly less likely than men to receive prescriptions for the most effective treatments for HIV infection
• New York has the highest number of women living with AIDS – 22,532
• Seven of the 10 states with the highest case rates among women are in the South
• The rate of women in D.C. infected with HIV/AIDS is nearly 12 times the national average

HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects minority women in the United States. According to the 2005 census, Black and Latina women represent 24% of all US women combined, but account for 82% of the estimated total of AIDS diagnoses for women in 2005.

HIV is the:

• Leading cause of death for Black women (including African American women) aged 25–34 years.
• 3rd leading cause of death for Black women aged 35–44 years
• 4th leading cause of death for Black women aged 45–54 years4th leading cause of death for Latina women aged 35–44 years
• The only diseases causing more deaths of women are cancer and heart disease
• The rate of AIDS diagnosis for Black women was approximately 23 times the rate for white women and 4 times the rate for Latina women
• In 2006, teen girls represented 39% of AIDS cases reported among 13–19 year-olds. Black teens represented 69% of cases reported among 13–19 year-olds; Latino teens represented 19%.

(from the CDC and the Kaiser Family Foundation via The Red Pump Project)

This, my friends, troubles me far more than the large number of Black women who are terminating their pregnancies. Both sets of statistics speak to the same problem by and large: our continued participation in high risk sexual behavior. It’s almost suicidal. It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around our callous disregard for our own lives. We can slash our abortion numbers and our STI infection rates very simply by taking the time to prioritize our sexual health. Condoms and testing. CONDOMS AND TESTING. Place these two life savers at the center of your sexual life and we will all be much better for it.