Latinx AIDS Awareness Day and Fighting Stigma
By Beth LaMontagne Hall
Guest Blogger
October 15 was National Latinx AIDS Awareness Day, a day designed to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS and encourage prevention and treatment within the Hispanic community. Nationally, HIV/AIDS impacts the Latinx community disproportionately. Although they are one-fifth of the American population, members of the Latinx community accounted for a quarter of HIV infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Harbor Care’s HIV Program in Nashua serves more than 200 clients who represent a diverse group within the Southern New Hampshire area, made up of White, Hispanic, Black and African clients. Migdalia Rodriguez, a case manager with the program, said that for some members of the Latinx community they serve, stigma can be a barrier to services.
The HIV Program provides health care, housing, transportation services, healthy food through the pantry, and access to all Harbor Care services. It also hosts peer support groups and provides one-on-one support to clients. It’s these support opportunities Rodriguez says some members of the Latinx community are missing because of fear their status will become public.
“They don’t want people to know their status because of the stigma,” she said, noting that older, more traditional members of the community can be closed-minded about people with HIV/AIDS.
“They are very private about their status and it keeps them from getting the services they need. They are kind of isolated at home. Some people are not really wanting to come into the office. It can be hard.”
According to the CDC, stigmas about behavior and sexuality in the Latinx community could be putting more people are risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, saying that:
“The fear of disclosing risk behaviors or sexual orientation can prevent people from seeking testing, prevention and treatment services, and support from friends and family. As a result, some Latinos may lack critical information about HIV prevention.”
Continued education to fight stigma
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Although culture and traditional values may play a role in the persistence of stigma among some Hispanics, it is not a phenomenon that is unique to the Latinx community. Much work has been done to fight the stigma of an HIV/AIDS diagnosis, but sometimes that stigma shows up in unexpected places.
Recently, an HIV Program client came in upset about an interaction with a doctor, according to Rodriguez. During an urgent care visit, the doctor had noted the client’s HIV positive status and then followed up by asking if he had sex with men.
“That was really hurtful to him,” said Rodriguez. “Some doctors automatically assume that if you are HIV positive, you’ve had sex with men.”
Assumptions about people with HIV/AIDS still persist in the medical community, surprisingly. Some providers assume positive status goes hand-in-hand with drug misuse or certain sexual activity. And misconceptions about HIV/AIDS still exist within the community at-large, Rodriguez said, and she occasionally encounters people with a lack of understanding about the disease and how it’s transmitted. She recalled a visitor to the HIV Program who was hesitant to use the bathroom for fear of getting the virus.
“There is an old school stigma about how it is transmitted,” said Rodriguez. “I just take that opportunity to talk to them and educate them.”
Addressing new challenges
The past year and a half has presented additional, unique challenges for the clients of Harbor Care’s HIV Program. The office was closed for a time in 2020, and once it reopened, clients with compromised immune systems worried about the risks of coming in.
Read a blog post about Harbor Care's HIV Program’s peer support groups.
“It was very hard, especially for some clients,” said Rodriguez. “They like to be in here and talk to the case managers. They don’t feel the same over the phone. It’s challenging not to have face-to-face interaction with clients.”
The HIV Program has worked with clients to create work-arounds during the pandemic by providing services through mail and offering food to meet nutritional needs via no-contact delivery.
Despite these challenges, Harbor Care has also seen recent successes in meeting the needs of the HIV/AIDS positive clients it serves. In 2020, the HIV program reached an important milestone; for 10 years, no individuals living with HIV/AIDS were experiencing long-term unsheltered homelessness in the Greater Nashua area. In addition, it has achieved a 96 percent viral suppression rate among HIV/AIDS case management clients, a major success when compared to the national 65 percent viral suppression rate.
Harbor Care’s Director of HIV Services Wendy LeBlanc states that continuing to raise awareness throughout New Hampshire that “undetectable is untransmissible” is very important. Educating more people on the fact that today’s HIV/AIDS treatments can help people manage the disease for many years is yet one more aspect of addressing stigma.
“Early detection is key,” LeBlanc said. “Know your status and get on medication early enough, and you can get to undetectable and live a long and healthy life. HIV is a chronic, manageable disease as long as one has supports in place, which is why Harbor Care’s HIV Program is still critically necessary.