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Epidemiology of hiv/aids among latino teens and young people

There are 10 million young people between the ages of 15 to 24 with HIV/AIDS in the U.S., according to the 2004 data. Half the new cases of infection in that country are among that age. Latinos of that age represent 20% of the new infections in this country. Fifty-four percent of the new infections occur among African-American. AIDS is the first cause of death of Latino men between 24 to 44 years, many of them infected during their teen years. Latino females represent almost 25% of the new cases, increasing their percentage from 15% in to 23% in 2002. This rate is five times higher than that of non-Latino White women. This is due partly to the propensity of Latino females of being courted by older men and to a combination of negative characteristics of the machismo, patriarchate, and culture of the masculine supremacy, which makes engaging in a dialog difficult and to negotiate the use of preservatives. Another important factor is the precarious access of Latinos to sanitary services due to a lack of economic resources and by a series of cultural barriers. Thus, 48% of Latinos, according to the Kayser Foundation, were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS too late in comparison with the 38% of African-Americans. Two sources of data that oppose in relation to the sexual risk behavior of Latinos are the use of condoms rose from 37.4% to 53.5%, whereas the alcohol ingestion before engaging in sexual relations also ascended from 17.8% to 24.1% from 1991 to 1999, according to the CDC.

Aids among latino homosexuals

Half the Latino men infected by HIV in 2002 engaged in sex with other men; almost half of these men were born in Mexico. In the Northeast United States and in Puerto Rico, however, most of the infection cases occurred among injection drug addicts.

Three of the main reasons of the broad HIV/AIDS infection rate among homosexual men are (a) racism and poverty that produce a sense of impotence and lack of control in their sexual relations; (b) a stigma associated with AIDS and homosexuality causes the “sexual silence” that leads homosexuals to isolate themselves from their family support and preventive services, as well as inhibiting their capacity to negotiate safe sexual relations due to the cultural difficulties in the sexual communication; (c) the rigidity of the roles traditionally assigned to genders that make homosexuals feel like “insolvent men,” with a low self-esteem that increases the risk in situations in which they want to prove their “manly-hood.” In addition, according to Rafael Diaz (2000), there is a weakening or collapse of will power among homosexuals when interiorizing the cultural norms as “cognitive scripts” that forces them to act non-reflective when it comes to their sexual conduct.

The acculturation of the mexican-american family

The investigation has demonstrated that, in general, a major acculturation of the Mexican-American families in the North American society leads to a more frequent engaging in sexual risk behavior among its members. Nevertheless, the acculturation concept can be understood in various forms. The old concept of acculturation agreed with Gordon’s concept of assimilation (1960), understood as a unidirectional process of adoption of the dominant culture in the receiving society on behalf of the immigrant family. Later it seemed immigrants not only adapted in conformist and passive attitudes to the guest culture, but they also influenced and contributed some elements of their origin culture. Now, psycho-sociology operates the concept as bidirectional and segmented; that is to say, that the adoption of guidelines of the dominant culture is differentiated when it is able to be in the leisure sphere, for example, but not in the parental-filial relations. It has been found that the social capital of Latino communities preventively acts through its strong social networks so that the rates of sexual risk behavior and teen pregnancy are lower than in other neighborhoods of less Latino density. Also, it has been stated that religion practiced by immigrants in their country of origin, whether it is Catholic or evangelical, also plays a preventive role and can serve as a brake to an indiscriminate acculturation of the family. For Rueschenberg and cols. (1995), the acculturation process affects the components of the external familiar system, such as the orientation toward independence or social mobility, but hardly to the internal familiar systems.

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Source:  OpenStax, Immigration in the united states and spain: consideration for educational leaders. OpenStax CNX. Dec 20, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11150/1.1
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