Tech can combat HIV in Latinx community
In 1989, my best friend, Gustavo Garcia De La Vega from Mexico City, died of AIDS. I received the news two weeks after he passed away. In 1993, Ed Wells from the Church of Christ in Houston, who was like a second father to me, passed away and nobody told me. I found out two weeks later when I called his wife and she told me that he died from that disease called “AIDS.” I didn’t know anything about AIDS. I didn’t even know that condoms existed.
During that time in Houston, so many people were dying in their friends’ houses from complications related to the disease because they were afraid to talk about AIDS with their families, partners and communities. I saw firsthand how many were taken by the disease when I volunteered at Ben Taub Hospital and held people as they took their last breaths. I knew I needed to do something to help. That’s why, 25 years ago, I started the Fundación Latinoamericana Contra El SIDA Inc. That year, more than 48,000 people were newly infected with HIV in America. Given the stigma surrounding AIDS, we changed the name to Fundación Latinoamericana De Acción Social in 2013 and became FLAS.
Since 1994, the number of people diagnosed with HIV annually in the United States has decreased to 38,000. We’ve worked against impossible odds for decades to stop the spread of HIV. While this progress is remarkable, infection rates in marginalized communities continue to rise.
The face of HIV/AIDS is no longer white and urban. Southern states were home to 52 percent of new HIV diagnoses in 2018 despite being home to only 38 percent of the population. Latinx men who have sex with men saw a 24 percent increase in new HIV diagnoses from 2005 to 2014 while white men saw an 18 percent decline. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that among black men who have sex with men, 1 in 2 will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetimes and 1 in 4 Hispanic men who have sex with men. That compares with just 1 in 11 white men who have sex with men.
These disparities are unacceptable. We have some understanding of why these disparities exist. Access to treatment is critical. About two-thirds of Americans living with HIV get medical treatment, but among the 251,700 Latinx people living with HIV, only about one-third receive care. Study after study finds that black and Latinx communities feel less comfortable talking about HIV and AIDS. This is further complicated by language barriers, and studies suggest the number of Spanishspeaking doctors is actually decreasing while the Latinx population grows.
Geography also plays an important role in access to care. Between 2013 and 2017, more than twice the number of rural hospitals closed than in any other five-year period. Texas closed more rural hospitals than any other state.
That’s why technology can play such an important, even life-saving, role in improving the health of our communities. We can bring quality, Spanish language, judgmentfree health care to patients across the South through telehealth. It allows patients to receive quality, timely medical care and education, no matter where they live or how far the nearest doctor may be.
But location isn’t the only barrier. I once went to Mexico City to visit my friend’s mother. She warned me, “Take care of yourself because my son passed away from that horrible disease that kills people called AIDS.” Before he died, her son begged, “Please don’t tell my friends that I died from AIDS, and don’t allow anyone to see me at my funeral. I don’t want nobody to find out that I died from AIDS and see how I look as AIDS absorbs my body.”
Stigma is poisonous, and I am no stranger to its effects. As a trans woman who works in a border state to provide immigrants with treatment for one of the most stigmatized diseases in the world, doors don’t open easily for me. When I started FLAS, we struggled for years without funding. Fortunately, Houston is getting a big investment in prevention. Companies such as Gilead Sciences are funding the best local solutions to fight HIV and AIDS. In fact, Gilead’s COMPASS Initiative, which is providing more than $100 million over 10 years to organizations across the South, is helping FLAS debut Project REACH — a telehealth program to provide culturally competent care to Latinx people regardless of language, socioeconomic status or location.
I’m proud of the progress we’ve made, but I know we can do better. Telehealth can make culturally competent medical advice accessible to all, and Project Reach will focus on achieving this goal in Houston. We’ve come too far in our fight against HIV to stop now. Through public and private investment, communities throughout the South can employ innovative tactics to end the epidemic and help people live full and healthy lives — and telehealth represents the path forward.