Albany, N.Y., Capitalize on Community Project Targets HIV/AIDS Prevention in Black Community
Several representatives from Albany, N.Y.-area community groups on Tuesday announced the creation of Capitalize on Community, a new HIV/AIDS prevention project aimed at developing relationships between member groups and the city's black community, the Albany Times Union reports. The project -- which represents a partnership between the State University of New York-University at Albany, churches in the black community, the Whitney M. Young Jr. Health Center, St. John's Community Development Center and the Capital District African American Coalition on AIDS -- also plans to raise funds for future research and support AIDS prevention in the black community, the Times Union reports. According to the state Department of Health's 2000 Surveillance Report, HIV/AIDS affects a disproportionate number of black people in Albany; 40% of the city's residents who are between the ages of 25 and 29 and are living with AIDS are black, but blacks account for only 28% of the city's total population. Hayward Horton, an associate professor of sociology at UAlbany who announced the project, said that blacks in the community are at a higher risk of HIV/AIDS because of a lack of resources, the belief that they will not contract HIV and a high incidence of high-risk behaviors, including unprotected sex and drug use, according to the Times Union. Capitalize on Community plans to hold focus groups to talk with people in Albany affected by HIV/AIDS and conduct one-on-one interviews with community and church leaders and people living with HIV/AIDS to find out why leaders in the black community "tend to ignore the issue," the Times Union reports (Willingham, Albany Times Union, 10/1).
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