

CDC - Estimates of new HIV infections in the United States - yapcguy
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/surveillance/incidence/

======
jzwinck
I was surprised to see black heterosexual women ahead of any group other than
homosexual men--and by a large margin. I wondered why this would be. Some
ideas:

1) Black heterosexual women are more likely to have sex with black
heterosexual men, who are in turn more likely to have HIV (according to the
same data). The black male population has fewer cases than the females, but
this might be reconciled by noting that male-to-female transmission is more
likely than the reverse.

2) Perhaps the bigger risk factor for heterosexual women is not being black,
but being poor. TFA does not include a breakdown by socioeconomics. Or
perhaps, the risk factor for women is being part of a community with a high
rate of male imprisonment.

Related to the above, it seems that male-to-female transmission during sex is
more likely then the reverse in high-income countries like the US, but this
does not hold in low-income countries. So that raises another question of why.
See [http://www.aidsmap.com/Estimated-risk-per-
exposure/page/1324...](http://www.aidsmap.com/Estimated-risk-per-
exposure/page/1324038/)

There are a whole bunch of possibilities, and I don't claim to know which are
most true, but presenting a simple graph that says black women get HIV a lot
seems a little...not helpful?

Edited to add: I dug up a study from three years ago by the very same CDC
which specifically says it's poverty more than race that matters. So why are
they publishing charts that highlight race and ignore poverty? See here:
[http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/povertyandhivpressreleas...](http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/povertyandhivpressrelease.html)

~~~
smtddr
_> >Perhaps the bigger risk factor for heterosexual women is not being black,
but being poor._

I'm confident you're correct; this has everything to do with being
poor/middle-class/rich than race. But you can't see people's net-worth as
easily as physical features so we continue to publish studies grouping people
by race. I mean really, as if HIV is just waiting to get me because of my
brown skin...

~~~
refurb
What would be the drivers? Lack of education about safe sex habits?

Other than that, I'm not sure why socioeconomic status would be so correlated
with new infections.

~~~
yetanotherphd
HIV is just waiting to get you because of your low bank balance.

~~~
smtddr
Well played. I laughed, but see my reply to another commentor:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6949440](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6949440)

I admit without my more detailed explanation, you'd be right. low bank balance
is just as absurd a cause for increased HIV infections as my brown skin is.

~~~
yetanotherphd
Your explanation of why socio-econimic status might be correlated with HIV
makes sense.

However I still think your dismissal of race as having independent explanatory
power is wrong.

For example, race has independent explanatory power in predicting crime rates,
even after taking into account many other social and economic variable. This
doesn't mean that skin color causes crime, e.g. there could be (and almost
certainly are) very many social factors that are correlated with race but hard
to measure objectively.

------
capkutay
Interesting...but I don't think hacker news is the right place to share this
type of article.

~~~
popularopinion
It's not irrelevant. Look through the HN guidelines [1]. Articles like this
are definitely acceptable.

-

 _Hacker News Guidelines - What to Submit_

 _On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one 's intellectual curiosity._

[1]
[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
lvh
The article doesn't really seem to mention what IDU/MSM mean:

MSM: Men who have Sex with Men IDU: Injection Drug Users

The reasons why these people are at extra risk should be obvious :)

------
yetanotherphd
That is some of the most racist, homophobic garbage I have seen. Which
shitlord funded this study? Probably the Koch brothers.

~~~
refurb
Please explain why you felt the study was racist and homophobic. Was it simply
because it categorized new infections by race and sexual orientation?

I'm not sure I understand.

