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National Youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day
Today’s young people are the first generation who have never known a world without HIV and AIDS. In the United States, more than 1 in 5 new HIV diagnosis are young people between 13 and 24 years old. By the end of 2016 around 51 percent of youth living with HIV were unaware that they had HIV. Gay and bisexual males accounted for most new HIV diagnosis among youth in 2015; of newly diagnosed males 54 percent were black, 25 percent Hispanic/Latino and 16 percent were white. Youth with HIV are the least likely to be linked to care of any age group.
Since 2013, National Youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD) has been commemorated on April 10 across the country in high schools, colleges, churches and more. NYHAAD is a big step towards understanding and spreading the word around about the problem of HIV/AIDS among young people and celebrating the efforts that they put in fighting this battle against HIV.
APA/BET Youth Advisory Board Blog
April 10 is National Youth HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, an event that raises awareness about the importance of engaging youth in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. While young people may tune out sexual health messages from the adults in their lives, they pay close attention to their peers. Youth voices and peer-to-peer education are potent weapons in the fight against the AIDS epidemic. Which is why the APA/BET Youth Advisory Group authored a guest blog post encouraging their fellow teens to know their status, seek information, and share the facts via social media: “Stop the Virus by Going Viral.” Make sure to share this post with the young people in your life.
A Day to Remember
NYHAAD is an important day to remember because HIV/AIDS among youth is a bigger problem than many believe it to be. At the end of 2015, an estimated 60,300 youth aged 18 to 24 were living with HIV in the United States. Of these, 31,000 were living with undiagnosed HIV — the highest rate of undiagnosed HIV in any age group. Young people (aged 13-24) accounted for an estimated 21 percent of all new HIV diagnoses in the United States in 2016. Among youth aged 13 to 24 diagnosed with HIV in 2016, 81 percent were gay or bisexual males. In 2016, youth aged 13 to 24 represented 8 percent of total AIDS diagnoses that year. Investing in young people’s health through education and prevention is critical.