Keeping It Real: No, it’s not over yet

So, how many days until summer vacation? After spring break all across this nation, this is one “critical” question most middle and high school students would probably get right. While kids beam with pride when they recite the exact number of days, parents across this nation fall back into shock and awe that another school year is about to end.

Why aren’t we asking our youth a truly critical question—Do you know about HIV and AIDS? April 10th is National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day. This year we celebrate the fifth annual observance of a day created to educate about the impacts of HIV and AIDS on youth.  According to the CDC, 1 in 5 new HIV diagnoses were in young people aged 13-24 years, but only 10 percent of high school students have ever been tested for HIV. That means there is a significant gap between those who have it and those who know they have it. Without knowledge, you cannot prevent transmission. But where do our youth get their education on HIV and AIDS?

We must all step into the critical role of promoting the health of our youth. We need to be talking about HIV and AIDS more. We need to be talking about it regularly. Youth need to get educated about HIV and AIDS, parents should be talking to their children and, yes, schools should also promote the health of our youth.

But the numbers tell us this is not happening because the numbers of new HIV infections for youth in Florida continue to be some of the worst in the country. What obstacles are preventing our youth from getting prevention services, testing, and treatment?

We can’t know if families are really talking about it, but we know health education is taught within our schools. However, it varies wildly from state to state, district to district and school to school. Information about sexually transmitted diseases or HIV and AIDS is not uniformly presented. Public health experts and parents have been asking the same question for years: Is preventative education starting early enough? Most would say no, and many of the lessons on prevention don’t include information specifically for lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender youth.

If a district’s health education curriculum isn’t complete, where else could our youth be getting their information on HIV and AIDS? Some districts invite youth serving organizations to provide the education once a year, but other districts teach “abstinence-only” health education. In other words, they teach nothing. If the parents aren’t talking about, the schools aren’t talking about, and the youth don’t want to talk about HIV and AIDS because of the stigma—what chance is there the youth will learn what they need to know? Slim to none. There’s always the internet to fill the gap. While it’s not ideal, there is some great information available if you know where to go. Two great resources include HIV.gov and AdvocatesForYouth.org.

Inadequate sex education is the first of many hurdles our youth are facing in preventing HIV and AIDS transmission. The 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey highlighted several additional hurdles including low testing rates among high school students, substance abuse and low rates of condom use. LGBT youth who are feeling isolated, lack support or are experiencing violence may end up in mental distress or engaging in risky behaviors that are associated with getting HIV. While we work on preventing the bullying, on ending the discrimination, we must also work on prevention.

Additionally, the stigma around HIV is pervasive in this country and our youth know it. In the 2012 Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 84 percent of youth aged 15 to 24 said they know there is stigma around HIV in the United States. How does that stigma impact how youth see HIV and AIDS? How they talk about it? How they try to protect themselves? How does this impact LGBT youth who are just beginning to explore their sexuality and are confronted by homophobia or transphobia? We must proactively remove the stigma.

There are 1,000 new HIV cases among youth each month; 1,000 new infections of an entirely preventable virus. Perhaps we are too far removed from the AIDS hysteria of the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps we’ve forgotten the three Ray brothers who weren’t allowed to go to school in Florida. Perhaps we’ve forgotten Ryan White. Perhaps we’ve forgotten the hatred and the vitriol. Perhaps we’ve forgotten the passion and dedication of the healthcare workers who selflessly did all they could to care for so many who were isolated and publicly rejected. That passion from the past must be channeled today to turn the tide of new infections of HIV and AIDS.

As we look ahead to wrapping up another school year, let’s not forget that the fight against the spread of HIV is not over yet. Maybe next year will be the year.