Among Latinos, HIV awareness starts with #onecovnversation
By Veronica Landa, NewsTaco
There’s a quiet, if counterintuitive, victory happening: the population of those infected with HIV is going up, but the number of new infections is holding steady. This means people with HIV are living longer. Thanks to amazing medical advances and outreach efforts, HIV has gone from being a death sentence to being more like a chronic disease. It’s something terrible, but manageable, and almost entirely preventable. Yet, there are still pockets where that victory is lagging. [tweet_dis]Almost 1 in 4 new cases of HIV in the United States occur among Latinos, though only 17% of the population is Latino.[/tweet_dis] This overrepresentation means Latinos are more at risk, and the main reason is because we don’t want to talk about it.
[pullquote]Research shows that openly talking about HIV/AIDS is the best defense.[/pullquote]The stigma of HIV persists in our community. It’s not with outcries, but rather with silence. But that silence hinders effective prevention and allows the disparity to continue, maybe even grow. [tweet_dis]Research shows that openly talking about HIV/AIDS is the best defense.[/tweet_dis] It results in more testing and prevention behaviors, literally just talking can save lives. Yet these conversations go unspoken because we’re uncomfortable, it isn’t normal. But what else from the 1980’s is normal today?
Luckily normal changes all the time.
People are coming up with innovative ways to break the ice and change social norms in the Latino community. A tried and true method using community peer leaders to disseminate information by starting conversations about HIV and creating an accepting environment has been shown to effectively increase testing and prevention behavior. They change the normal, which allows people at risk to feel it is ok to get tested, ok to disclose their status, or ok to practice safe sex.
[pullquote]Studies have shown that a community peer leader on social media can start conversations and create a new normal for people in the same way they can on the ground.[/pullquote]Some researchers have been adapting this model to social media which provides a unique opportunity to reach many more people across physical boundaries at a lower cost. Studies have shown that a community peer leader on social media can start conversations and create that new normal for people in the same way they can on the ground. They also found that the same behavior changes occurred-those who participated in the study requested more testing kits and practiced more preventive behavior than those who did not.
It starts with #oneconversation.
Though there is no established best practice yet for peer leaders to follow on social media, the method has potential. [tweet_dis]Latinos are 1.5 times as likely to use social media as adults in general[/tweet_dis], and those participating in the study showed more interactive activity like chatting and personal messaging. This means conversations are starting. It is when those conversations jump off the screen and into the physical world that the real impact happens.
If our social norms can adapt to encourage open conversations, people won’t have to hide. They’ll get tested, they’ll talk about their status, and they’ll practice safe sex. Those are the tools to stop the epidemic, to end the disparity, and save countless lives. Whether that happens online or at home over the dinner table, it starts with #oneconversation.
Sources:
http://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.utsph.idm.oclc.org/pmc/articles/PMC3879120/
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/racialethnic/hispaniclatinos/
Veronica Landa, MPH, is a health educator at the Baylor College of Medicine’s Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center. She earned a master’s degree in public health from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and a BS degree in Science, Technology, and Society from Stanford University. You can reach her at: veronica.i.landa@gmail.com.
