AIDS still a problem

In 2005, HIV/AIDS was reported the sixth-leading cause of death in Americans age 25-44. There are currently over 56,000 new cases of HIV/AIDS each year with a total of 1.1 million currently. Even with these reports, Americans' perception of the problem has drastically decreased in the past few years. In 1995, 44% of Americans said that HIV/AIDS was the most urgent public health problem facing the United States. Today, that number has fallen to just 6%, this is most notably due to politicians turning their attention to the overseas situation. Public awareness has also dropped, in 2005 35% of Americans claimed they had heard "a lot" about the problem of AIDS. In 2006, that number dropped to just 14%. The Obama administration recently committed $45 million for a public awareness program "Act Against AIDS", a five year program intended to raise the public saliency of the problem. The public must be educated about AIDS, policy makers are faced to ask the public if it feels that AIDS is a serious issue?

URL: http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/HIV-AIDS-May-2009