black women,
Society, and HIV An expert talks about the context of infection Taken from an interview with Adaora A. Adimora, MD, MPH
I
n the mid-1900s, there was
Editor’s note: Adaora A. Adimora, MD, MPH, received her medical degree from
Yale University School of Medicine and Master’s in Public Health in epidemiology (the study of how disease spreads among people) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Dr. Adimora’s work as both a physician and an epidemiologist has focused on infectious disease, particularly HIV and its disproportionate effect on minority populations. Her groundbreaking research includes the publishing of the first national data on concurrent sexual partnerships in women and analysis of the contextual (social, economic, and environmental) factors that promote concurrent sexual partnerships among African Americans in the United States. She has testified before a Congressional committee on the HIV epidemic and, for World AIDS Day in 2010, was invited to the White House to speak in a panel discussion. The following is taken from an interview with Dr. Adimora. —Enid Vázquez
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S EP TE M B E R +O C TO BER 201 2
the rise of so-called “risk factor epidemiology.” People became much more focused on individual determinants, the individual behaviors and characteristics of people that put them at risk for disease. And these things are important. But it turns out there’s increasing evidence that in order to really make headway with the HIV epidemic in this country, and in the world, there’s going to need to be more attention paid to some of the social factors that drive people’s behavior and also set them up to acquire infection. P os i t iv e lyAware .com