Emory University launches Interactive Online Map of Impact of HIV at State and County Level.

The Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University launched AIDSVu (www.AIDSVu.org), an interactive online map that, 30 years into the epidemic, provides for the most detailed publicly available view of the number of people living with an HIV diagnosis in the United States by state and county. The data pinpoint areas of the country where HIV prevalence rates are the highest, and where the needs for prevention, testing and treatment services are the most urgent.

“AIDSVu is an important new public health tool that makes data on the geography of HIV in the United States available to anyone with an Internet connection”

AIDSVu is also the first online tool to link state and county-level HIV prevalence data with local HIV testing sites, information about state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs and estimates of the percentage of HIV diagnoses that are made late in the course of the disease. AIDSVu will be updated on an ongoing basis as new data and information become available.

“AIDSVu is an important new public health tool that makes data on the geography of HIV in the United States available to anyone with an Internet connection,” said Dr. James Curran, Dean of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. “AIDSVu shows us that every area of the country is affected by HIV, and we hope that AIDSVu helps individuals better understand HIV in their communities and take charge of their health.”

The state and county-level data displayed on AIDSVu were obtained from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and compiled by researchers at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. The project is guided by a Technical Advisory Group with representatives from federal agencies, state health departments and non-governmental organizations working in HIV prevention, care and research. Financial support for AIDSVu was provided to Emory University by Gilead Sciences, Inc.

“The high-resolution maps on AIDSVu let us see the parts of the country most impacted by HIV – and the places where we need to focus HIV prevention resources,” said Dr. Patrick Sullivan, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, who is the principal researcher for AIDSVu. “Knowing the areas most affected by HIV is critical for meeting the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, which calls for significantly reducing new HIV infections and improving care for people living with HIV.”

Key features and findings of AIDSVu include:

– AIDSVu shows that the HIV epidemic in the United States varies considerably by geography. Some of the most heavily impacted areas include the Northeast and the South.

– AIDSVu provides zip code-level HIV prevalence data for New York City and Washington, DC, and additional city-level zip code maps will be added in the future.

– The data on AIDSVu maps can be viewed by race/ethnicity at both the state and county levels. AIDSVu shows that HIV disproportionately affects black and Hispanic Americans, and that these disparities exist in both major metropolitan areas and rural areas.

– The state-level information on the estimated number of people with HIV who are diagnosed late stresses the need for increased availability of earlier HIV testing. Nationally, an estimated one-third of HIV diagnoses are made late, when treatment may be less effective and people are at greater risk of unknowingly infecting others.

– AIDSVu is being launched in advance of the 30-year anniversary of the first reported AIDS cases to the CDC on June 5, 1981. Today, more than one million Americans are living with HIV, and an estimated one in five people with HIV do not know their status.

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