HIV/AIDS among Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States

Abstract

Asians and Pacific Islanders (APIs) are one of the fastest growing ethnic minority groups in the United States. From 1980 to 2000, APIs more than doubled from 1.6% to 4.2% of the U.S. population (Barnes & Bennett, 2002). By the year 2050, it is estimated that the API population will increase to 8% of the U.S. total, reaching 33.4 million persons (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were an estimated 7,166 APIs diagnosed with AIDS in the United States as of December 2003 (CDC, 2004). Although APIs account for 0.8% of all U.S. AIDS cases, the number of estimated AIDS cases increased from 1999 to 2003 at a higher rate for APIs (35%) compared to African Americans (8%), Latinos (7%), and Native Americans (21%; CDC, 2004). By comparison, the number of AIDS cases decreased by 3% for Whites during the same time period. Moreover, recent data from San Francisco, where nearly one in seven APIs with AIDS live (Zaidi et al., this issue), find an increase in risk for HIV infection among API men who have sex with men (MSM; McFarland, Chen, Weide, Kohn, & Klausner, 2004). Unprotected anal intercourse with two or more sex partners of unknown HIV serostatus in the past six months increased from 6% in 1999 to 16% in 2002 among API MSM. During the same time period, the incidence of male rectal gonorrhea increased from 200 to 800 per 100,000 for API men. Another survey conducted in San Francisco between June 2004 and April 2005 shows a higher HIV prevalence of 3.9% among young API MSM ages 18–29 (H. Fisher Raymond, personal communication, July 20, 2005) than the 2.6% prevalence found for the same group in 2000–2001 (Choi et al., 2004). Although APIs may increasingly be at greater risk for HIV, less attention has been paid to their concerns due to the small number of reported API AIDS cases. This thematic issue presents seven articles to highlight HIV–related problems that confront APIs in the United States. The first article describes the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS, behavioral risk, and HIV testing among APIs. Zaidi et al. (this issue) analyzed HIV/AIDS cases reported to the CDC between 1999 and 2002 and data from the 1997–2002 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey. Their analyses show that the prevalence of HIV and AIDS is lower among APIs compared to other racial/ethnic groups, but APIs are as likely as other racial/ethnic groups to engage in AIDS Education and Prevention, 17(5), iii–v, 2005 © 2005 The Guilford Press