A disproportionate percentage of women and girls living with HIV and AIDS  in NYC – 60% -- reside in just 14 ZIP codes in eastern Brooklyn, the Bronx, and northern Manhattan, according a study released yesterday by The Women’s HIV Collaborative of New York. Socio-economic stressors in these “hot spots,” including high rates of poverty and incarceration, heighten women’s risk for acquiring HIV.

Consequently, the report recommends that local politicians, service providers, and advocates work together to reduce HIV risk among NYC’s women and girls by enacting reform in areas such as housing, education, health care, and the correctional system, and targeting services to these areas of highest need.

“This report identifies down to the ZIP code those areas with the highest concentrations of HIV-positive women,” said Rona Taylor, Board President of The Women’s HIV Collaborative of New York. “Our report overlays readily accessible maps of this ‘hot spot’ data with other maps that indicate those areas with high levels of poverty and prison admissions and low rates of high school graduation. In doing so it provides a virtual road map of NYC’s areas of greatest need. Our hope is that local politicians, advocates, and service providers will find this report and our recommended actions helpful as we all work together to curb the epidemic and heal these neighborhoods and communities.”

Ten percent of the women and girls with HIV in the U.S. live in NYC, making it home to the largest population of women with HIV in the country.  A disproportionate number of these women—90 percent—are black and Hispanic; over half, or 68 percent, are over the age of 40; and more than a third, or 41 percent, were infected through heterosexual activity.

“Women’s biological risk for HIV is intensified by other socio-economic stressors,” says Pei Desrosiers, Executive Director of The Women’s HIV Collaborative of New York. “The report’s literature review indicates that these include poverty, domestic violence, mental health issues, homelessness, substance abuse, lack of access to health care or sexual health information, and incarceration. If a woman is struggling to protect her children from an abusive partner, or scrambling to keep some kind of roof over their heads, or wrestling with her own addiction or depression, her HIV status is likely to be the last item on her list of priorities.”

“Women Living with HIV and AIDS in NYC: A Mapping Project and Literature Review” also includes detailed borough tables, including percentage of non-white residents, percentage of residents living in poverty, prison admissions per 1000 residents, and percentage without a high school diploma, as well as HIV and AIDS diagnoses by race/ethnicity, age group, borough of residence, and transmission risk.

To visit The Women's HIV Collaborative of New York website, click here.

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