Ford Foundation Initiative to Tackle HIV Crisis in United States

June 2, 2010 PR Newsire

The Ford Foundation today announced a $25 million effort to fight the disproportionate yet largely hidden impact of HIV/AIDS on marginalized communities in the United States.

The initiative will target the District of Columbia and nine states in the South that rank among the highest in new AIDS cases. It will also support efforts to address the spread of HIV among African Americans, women and Latinos. The effort will build upon investments made by Ford over the past several years to address the impact of HIV in these communities and to fight the discrimination that allows the epidemic to spread. It is informed by decades of Ford work tackling difficult human rights issues facing highly marginalized communities.

The South accounted for almost half (46 percent) of new AIDS cases in the United States in 2007 and has the greatest number of people estimated to be living with AIDS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Also in 2007, racial and ethnic minorities represented seven-in-ten (71 percent) of new AIDS cases and AIDS deaths (70 percent). Today, women represent a larger share of new HIV infections than they did earlier in the epidemic, with some 280,000 living with HIV or AIDS. Black women bear the brunt of this impact, accounting for nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of new AIDS cases among women, and having a prevalence rate 18 times that of white women.

At the same time, most of these communities have among the lowest levels of access to resources designed to prevent and treat the disease. The South, for example, consistently ranks at or near the bottom in terms of federal dollars spent on HIV-infected populations.

"This crisis is affecting the places and people that as a country we too easily ignore," said Luis A. Ubinas, president of the Ford Foundation. "The HIV infection rate among African Americans, if looked at in isolation, would rank the United States as one of the countries in the world most affected by the epidemic. We can't accept that. This initiative aims not only to help stop the spread of HIV, but also to address the stigma and discrimination that allowed the epidemic to grow in these communities in the first place."

Ford's grants--at least $5 million a year for the next five years--will support organizations working to:

Build strong constituencies of leaders, especially among the most affected communities. These leaders and their organizations will educate policymakers and the public about the disproportionate impact of HIV in the United States and what's needed to address it.

Expand advocacy and litigation work at both the federal and state levels to ensure a more effective and equitable response to HIV/AIDS. Early grants to build capacity in these areas among grassroots organizations are already yielding policy shifts.

Fight the stigma and discrimination that contribute to the spread of the disease.

"This initiative is about opening everyone's eyes to the toll that HIV is taking in communities across America and moving more people to take action," said Terry McGovern, program officer at the Ford Foundation. "It's also about following the numbers. If we're serious about addressing HIV in the United States, we have to focus on the places and the populations where it is spreading the fastest. Breaking the stigma, getting people to talk about the issues and creating a culture of openness around HIV are absolutely essential to this work."