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Metro TeenAIDS conducted a survey of the District's youth with regard to HIV.
The District has the highest rate of new reports of AIDS in the nation: almost ten times the national average.
Approximately one-half of all new HIV infections nationally occur among people under 25 years of age, and youth in the District are no exception: HIV infection rates among the District’s young people tripled for the period 2000 to 2005 compared to the previous five years.
Despite recent local and national decreases, the District still has among the highest United States teen pregnancy rates. The teenage birthrate in the District in 2005 was 42.1 births per 1,000 compared to 40.4 nationally and there were 64.4 pregnancies per 1,000 women age 15 to 19.
District youth also have disproportionately high rates of STIs compared to the nation: in 2002, among the 10 to 19-year-old population of the District, the STI rate is almost twice the national average at 991 per 100,000 compared to 503 per 100,000 in the United States.
The 2007 DC Department of Health Epidemiology Surveillance report shows that DC’s HIV/AIDS rate is the worst in the nation. For adolescents, an estimated 1 in every 100 youth aged 13-24 has HIV or AIDS.
Individual behaviors play a large role in the alarming growth of these rates. Although the proportion of students in Washington, DC engaging in sexual intercourse early has declined dramatically in the last decade, still 14 percent of local high schools students reported first having sexual intercourse before age 13.
In previous surveys conducted by Metro TeenAIDS [see survey on the HIV Risk Factors Among Young People], almost one-half (41 percent) of all sexually active youth polled reported that they use a condom only 'sometimes' or 'never'.
The following chart shows the rate of deaths per 100,000 from HIV/AIDS. The District outpaces the next closes state by a margin on over 4 to 1 (42 per 100,000). The next closes state, Florida, has a rate of just under 10 per 100,000.
SOURCE: CDC. Age-Adjusted Death Rate for HIV Disease, 2004.
Between 1997 and 2006, almost 70 percent of all AIDS cases progressed from HIV to AIDS in less than 12 months after the initial HIV diagnosis, primarily due to late testing, compared to 39 percent nationally.
The District accounted for 9 percent of all pediatric AIDS cases in the United States during 2005. Between 2001 and 2006, there were 56 children ages 13 or younger diagnosed with either HIV or AIDS in the District of Columbia.
Although African-American residents account for 57 percent of the population, they account for 81 percent of new reports of HIV cases.
African-American women constitute 58 percent of the District's female population, but account for 90 percent of all new female HIV cases.
Heterosexual contact in the District is the leading mode of HIV transmission at 37 percent of newly reported infections, while nationally men who have sex with men lead new transmissions.
The District's rate for newly reported AIDS cases is higher than rates in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Detroit, and Chicago.
Nearly every ward in the District is impacted, though Wards 1, 5, 6 and 8 consistently had the highest numbers of residents diagnosed with HIV and AIDS.
The majority of newly reported cases were among residents ages 30 to 49.
SOURCE: District of Columbia Department of Health. Epidemiology Annual Report. November 26, 2007.
