Health Promotion – Scholarly HIV Article Despite addressing HIV/AIDS since the early 1980's and despite strenuous efforts to uniformly address and defeat our nation's HIV/AIDS epidemic, the collection, review and reporting of data is still disorganized beneath the surface. The 2010 Commentary on the 2008 CDC HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report illustrates a central resource for addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in America. The Commentary appears to accurately summarize and provide access to uniformly collected, examined and reported data from all reporting sources in the United States; however, use of these linked items shows a great deal of difference in intervals, review and reporting of data.
¶ … 2010 Commentary on the 2008 CDC HIV / AIDS Surveillance Report illustrates a central resource for addressing the HIV / AIDS epidemic in America. At first blush, the Commentary appears to accurately summarize and provide access to uniformly collected, examined and reported data from all 50 States and many cities within them. However, more careful review of these supposedly linked sources shows that there is a great deal of room for improvement in achieving uniform collection and treatment of data.
The 2010 Commentary on the 2008 CDC HIV / AIDS Surveillance Report (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010) explains the data sources, methods of collection, review & organization of collected data and uses of data, along with changes in the periodic Surveillance Report issued by the Centers for Disease Control. The Centers for Disease Control act as the primary official source, not only for periodic raw data, but also for trends in HIV infection rates over a period of years (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). Through references to the 2008 Surveillance Report, and by click-through, to state-by-state surveillance reports, the 2010 Commentary offers an overarching explanation of HIV trends while allowing review of pinpointed data. At first glance, the Commentary is encouraging, for it appears to allow access to State and City data sources that are equally well-organized. Unfortunately, that encouragement quickly gives way to disappointment, as actually using the Commentary's provided links quickly shows the differences in data collection and reporting among the four "hot spot" cities of: New York, NY; Baltimore, MD; Washington, DC; and San Francisco, CA. In an attempt to find individual State/City data regarding males/females ages 13 -- 21 according to the categories of "Men who have sex with men and inject drugs" (MSMID), "Men who have sex with men" (MSM), "Injection Drug Users" (IDU), "Heterosexual Contact" (HET) on individual State/City web sites, many categorizations and reportage were found.
New York, NY:
The Commentary link to New York State did work; however, New York State's data was far harder to read than was the latest information from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. New York City's reported Surveillance gave general male/female and adequate data by risk but grouped ages from 13 -- 19 and from 20-29.
(New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2012, p. 2).
Baltimore, MD:
Unfortunately, the link from the CDC website to Maryland's State website is broken; consequently, the Commentary fails in that respect. By clicking through Maryland's state health web site(s), these statistics were discovered:
(Maryland Department of Health & Mental Hygiene - Prevention and Health Promotion Administration, 2012, p. 15).
While Maryland's reporting does account for risk categories, it lacks sufficient data distinguishing male and female. In addition, Maryland's statistics measured data for persons aged 0 -- 11 and 13 -- Infinity. Finally, the graphic is somewhat confusing and muddled. Perhaps a more easily readable account is provided by the graph below, provided by the City of Baltimore:
(Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2011, p. 30).
Washington, DC:
The Commentary's link to the District of Columbia was also broken. District Columbia does collect HIV data and report on it; however, it takes a somewhat different tack than do the other States/cities: using age categories of 0 -- 19, 20 -- 29 and so forth; accounting for risks but not according to gender.
(Government of the District of Columbia Department of Health, 2012, p. 16).
(Government of the District of Columbia Department of Health, 2012, p. 16).
San Francisco, CA:
The Commentary link to the State of California does work; however, it tends to be more general data than that sought. The City of San Francisco, which is legendary for its aggressive approach to the HIV epidemic, makes quarterly reports on its HIV / AIDS statistics and also accounts for HIV incidents according to risk factors and gender; however, it divides its information according to those aged 0 -- 12 and those 12 -- Infinity:
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