(06-21) 17:35 PDT --
It's not surprising that San Francisco is among the top 20 counties
with the highest AIDS and HIV prevalence, but a new national online map
shows the Georgia counties of Fulton and DeKalb as well as Virginia's
Petersburg County also make the list.County-level data on the intensity of AIDS and HIV cases, as well as
statistics by age, gender and ethnicity, can be found through a new
HIV/AIDS Atlas being launched today by the National Minority Quality
Forum, a Washington, D.C., group.The online tool, available at www.mapHIV.org,
contains detailed information about HIV and AIDS in all 50 states, plus
Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The
information becomes available to the public for the first time in a
single location, according to the group, which helps track death and
disease in minorities and other special populations."For the first time, we actually know where the patients are," said
Gary Puckrein, chief executive officer of the National Minority Quality
Forum, which has created online atlases for other diseases such as
diabetes and cardiovascular conditions.The information helps improve data collection and analysis,
prevention initiatives, early diagnosis and routine testing efforts in
the hardest-hit communities, he said."With all this talk about health care and access, we've done a very
poor job of measuring things," he said. "Because you don't measure, you
make lots of assumptions about where the disease is."Using the HIV/AIDS Atlas, people can search by county and narrow
their field by gender, age and ethnicity. The results will come up on
color-coded maps, with the hot spots in red and regions with the lowest
prevalence in green.The atlas counts the number of patients relative to the population, not the overall number of patients."When you do this, you begin to see the disease in different ways,
and communities pop up on the radar screen we haven't noticed,"
Puckrein said.The level of information varies, with eight states providing
state-level information and 29 states offering data at the county
level.While New York City is the only region with ZIP code-level data,
users can view many counties by congressional and state legislative
districts. The atlas' creators stressed that it is an evolving tool and
they will incorporate new data when available."This, in a very graphic way, helps decision-makers to see what is
happening in their jurisdictions," said Dana Van Gorder, executive
director of Project Inform in San Francisco, who previewed the map. He
said San Francisco has data available by ZIP code that are not yet
included in the atlas.SOURCE:SFGATE.COM







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