PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Black men in the United States are six times as likely to die from HIV/AIDS than white men, despite only making up about 13% of the population.
"That's just not something that we should be seeing in 2024, but we were," said Dani McChesney, an Old Dominion University (ODU) nursing graduate student.
McChesney was floored when she saw the numbers.
"We have the solutions. We have the technology. It's just being able to implement education, to implement these interventions that could help people save their lives," McChesney continued.
Stats from the Department of Health and Human Services show Black men in the United States are six times more likely to die from HIV and AIDS than white men.
WATCH: Norfolk nonprofit educates community on National Black HIV/Aids Awareness Day
McChesney saw this firsthand while leading ODU's student nursing group. Her team spent time in Portsmouth working with healthcare providers to get more people tested and teach them about prevention like PrEP.
PrEP is a drug that can be used to help prevent HIV.
"HIV in these communities is a public health crisis, and it requires a public health intervention," McChesney said.
She believes earlier education could save lives.
"What we should be looking at is the sex education that we have in our high schools and our school systems. Maybe we should look about broadening that to not just heterosexual education, but broaden it to everybody," she continued.
Liam Costello is a licensed clinical social worker at ODU. He believes that acceptance may be part of the solution.
"More and more people are able to find accepting communities and to still continue to feel loved and accepted by their families and friends," Costello said.
"The idea that a lot of people when they're younger, have the idea that because I'm different, there's something wrong with me. I think that is something a lot of us have to work through as we get older," he continued.
News
World AIDS Day 2023: How far we've come in 35 years, and how far we need to go
The American Psychological Association found that members of the LGBTQ+ community are more than twice as likely as Heterosexual people to experience a mental health condition in their lifetime.
Here's an excerpt from the conversation I had with Costello:
Costello: "More and more people are able to find accepting communities and to still continue to feel loved and accepted by their families and friends."
Reporter: "I speak from personal experience. You may have those around you who are accepting, but unless you can accept yourself... that's where that starts, right?"
Costello: "Absolutely right, that internalized shame. The idea that a lot of people when they're younger, have the idea that because I'm different, there's something wrong with me. I think that is something a lot of us have to work through as we get older. Most members of traditionally or historically oppressed groups do experience high levels of mental health (issues) because, you live in a world that tells you there's something wrong with who you are, how could that not be damaging to your psyche?"
So how does that change? Costello said that's on all of us.
"When we are quick to like to stereotype and to put people in small boxes, then we miss out on kind of the complexity of the human experience."
