Abstarct
In June 1981, the first five cases of AIDS were recognized in the United States, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began tracking reported cases (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1981). By June 1982, more than 400 AIDS cases had been reported to CDC, with 19% of these cases occurring among non-Hispanic blacks (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1982). By 1996 and continuing through today, more cases have been diagnosed among blacks each year than among any other racial or ethnic population (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1996). In 2006, blacks accounted for 13% of the population of the United States, yet they accounted for 49% (17,960) of new AIDS diagnoses that year (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008a; U.S. Census Bureau, 2006).