Free Essay: Newark HIV/AIDS Needs Assessments Under Ryan White Project

The Newark metropolitan environment which is part of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS project has started projecting yearly needs examinations on people who have HIV/AIDS as early as 1994. This was a requirement by the program being run by Ryan White Legislation. The assessments conducted are inclusive of an Epidemiological Profile of the PLWHA in the regions that are included in the Newark region which are Essex, Morris, Sussex, Union, and Warren counties (Chelsea, 2019). In the needs assessment section of the report, there is a clear reflection of the findings of the report containing the needs assessment and the most recent Newark profile. Further, there are required resources that bring more light into the issues that concern health as well as factors that surround HIV disease.

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Considerably, the population that is within Newark EMA is more diverse in terms of race, socioeconomic, age, income and education status. This makes it more diverse than any other part of New Jersey. The said characteristics are major essentials when trying to understand the epidemic of HIV/AIDS and the needs of the people with the disease of HIV. Looking at the levels of education and illiteracy, there are barriers that hinder increasing employment, healthcare, services for HIV/AIDS and also the ability to acquire improved health care.

When putting together, there are 31,722 cases of HIV/AIDS that were accessed in the Newark regions or approximately 39 % of the total cases in New Jersey. At the end of the year 2015, the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS was reported to be living and they resided around Newark. The Newark EMA lacks the surveillance data that talks about the repeated occurrences of HIV/AIDS diagnosis. The data provided from the wider state indicate that the percentage remains consistent in New Jersey over the last ten years which means that there are about 24.8% of new diagnoses. Heterosexuality stood for 29% of the new cases of infection of HIV/AIDS in the state. Four percent of exposures to the disease were as a result of IDU. 33 % of infections were as a result of MSM while the remaining 34% of the cases were as a result of exposure.

Race and ethnicity is a factors to be looked at when considering HIV/AIDS diagnosis in Newark. Of the total people with the disease, 13,801, the people of the minority groups are 87 %. It stands at African-American being 66% and 21% being Latino. 12% of the population are whites who are not Hispanic and the other remaining one percent are from other races. Since the start of the HIV disaster, the concentration of the disease is largely among the minorities in the Newark region =, with the people acquiring African-American ethnicity being the most affected. However, Latino people have a growing proportion of the disease.

Secondly, gender and age account for an HIV/AIDS diagnosis. In the year 2015, the number of people who had the disease in Newark comprised 38% of women. This number was down as it stood at 40% from the past 10 years. In the past recent years, there are fewer women who are being tested positive of HIV/AIDS as compared to the number of men. Age, of the people living with HIV/AIDS shows the impact that life saving antiretroviral can have on the populations of Newark. Are shows that the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the last two years stands at around 69% and the age bracket is above 45 years? The children are diagnosed with HIV/AIDS under the age of 13 years have gone down in a notable way. However, the number of youths that are diagnosed with the disease is 25% with stage three of AIDS but this is a clear reflection of prenatal transmission aging into the age category.

Exposure also acts as a category for evaluating diagnosis of disease in Newark EMA. For many years, the Epidemic of the disease was due to injection drug use such as people injecting themselves with heroin (Chelsea, 2019). Since the drug has become purer, it is now being injected by non-injection methods. The type of injecting drugs has decreased as one of the methods of HIV exposure from twenty percent to 18 percent in the last two years. The number of people with the disease caused due to exposure to heterosexual contact and injection drug use has also remained constant. But the percentage of people infected due to exposure by MSM has gone higher in the last two years from twelve percent to twenty-three percent. This could be as a result of improved data collection or the people are less fearing due to being in the stigma of reporting MSM.

As stated earlier in the paper, the Newark EMA has no HIV surveillance data from the state records of the numbers of people newly diagnosed in the regions. In the Newark EMA system, there are a total of 184 more cases of people diagnosed in the system in the year 2015, with 92% being a racial or ethnic minority. This is a bigger percentage as compared to the other races. The data that was collected for Newark demonstrated some disproportionately higher percentages of new cases of disease diagnosis and the prevailing cases of HIV among minorities. In the year 2015, the prevalence rate of the disease in Newark EMA was registered to be 656 in a total of 100,000 people. This number was 65% higher than the rate of the state which was 419 people in a group of 100,000. The African -American was 2, 044 in a total population of 100,000. The rate of new infections by Hispanics was 666 in a total of 100,000 people. The new infections of whites in Newark EMA regions were 156 in every 100,000 people. All the rates of new infections are much higher than the statewide. Stating the facts otherwise, the rate of risking infection in the EMA regions is now 13 times higher among African Americans and five times higher among other whites.

Gender disparities are also something to consider among the people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. In the EMA larger region, the prevalence of the disease was at 23 times higher for the African American women in the year 2015 than it showed for white women. Secondly, it was 11 times greater for African American men as it was for the whites. The rate of prevalence of the disease in 2015 for Hispanic women was 6 times higher than the White men. The Hispanic men were 4 times higher than the white men. The minority women were more vulnerable since most of the exposures varied across the racial and ethnic groups.

Poverty and healthcare affordability are also points to consider. Major reports show that New Jersey is one county with the most residents living below poverty lines (New et al, 2019). The counties that are below the poverty level have a higher AIDS occurrence than the whole state. The number below the poverty level and living with AIDs is 11,594 and their incomes are below 138% and this is the most eligible limitation for expanding Medicaid. Additionally, there are 15% of people with incomes between 139% and 400% and this is the threshold for the subsidized healthcare insurance which is accorded by the Affordable Care Act.

Well stated, almost all the people living with AIDs in Newark get low incomes and this is according to the federal definitions. Thus, the main challenges for the said individuals range from accessing healthcare for AIDs as well as obtaining stable and affordable housing which is the main contributor to proper management of health and HIV disease.

The prevalence of the Affordable Healthcare and also the Medicaid Expansion that started in 2014 in New Jersey has caused more people with the disease to acquire healthcare insurance. The network created in Newark in 2015 required assessment and the assessment found that almost 50% was a reduced number of cases of people with HIV disease. However, there were another 22% of people who were left uninsured. The program by the community could be ineligible for the healthcare plan due to increased incomes, undocumented status or else in the US less than five years together with other issues in the administration.

The issue of homelessness accounts also for HIV infections. The estimates for people living with HIV/AIDS vary in the state of New Jersey and the Newark region. Statewide statistics indicate that around 1,200 people add up to the ones diagnosed with the disease in the state of New Jersey and are homeless. Almost seventy percentages of the homeless were reported to be alive until the end of 2015. The bigger portion of homelessness was around Essex, Hudson and other small counties.

The infectious disease carries a big burden to the residents of Newark. This was after examination of the disease in Newark and comparing it to the larger state of New Jersey. The disparity and also the higher occurrence have not in any way changed. The Newark community has a misappropriated impact of the disease starting from the time the epidemic was discovered.

In conclusion, the Newark community has to do a number of things so that they can help curve the rates of disease prevalence. These include; monitoring possible effects that come as a result of people living with AIDs and they should make sure they are retained regardless of the insurance status.

Secondly, the administration should mainly focus on the health disparities as well as the Newark agenda of Healthcare (New et al, 2019). Thirdly, the administration should make harder the collaborations and the partnerships especially with the prevention agencies so that they can make maximum the effects of HIV prevention in the healthcare agenda. Lastly, the administration is tasked with the suppression of the Newark wider-goal and the center of all quality management activities. With all the above factors, the Newark vision will be achievable as they aim for viral suppression. The integrated plan gives a forward step that results through the national HIV/AIDs come the year 2020. This means that there is an incorporation of the plan that changes the healthcare landscape and thus Affordable Care act will be inclusive helping curve the incidences of AIDs occurring in Newark.

Work Cited

York, N., County, W., Psychotherapy, K. and Hazelden Betty Ford in Chelsea, N. (2019). Newark HIV / AIDS Allied Treatment Centers - HIV / AIDS Allied Treatment Centers and Rehab Newark, Wayne County, New York - HIV / AIDS Allied Treatment Programs Newark. [online] Psychologytoday.com. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/treatment-rehab/hiv-aids-clients/ny/newark [Accessed 13 Apr. 2019].

York, New et al. "Newark HIV / AIDS Allied Treatment Centers - HIV / AIDS Allied Treatment Centers And Rehab Newark, Wayne County, New York - HIV / AIDS Allied Treatment Programs Newark". Psychologytoday.Com, 2019, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/treatment-rehab/hiv-aids-clients/ny/newark. Accessed 13 Apr 2019.

"Economically Disadvantaged | HIV By Group | HIV/AIDS | CDC". Cdc.Gov, 2019, https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/poverty.html.