Tag: HIV in Memphis

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MSCS Students Gain Access to HIV, STI Testing, Treatment

Photo by Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition via Unsplash

A new partnership will allow Memphis Shelby County Schools (MSCS) to provide students and families with testing for HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI), counseling, treatment, education, and more.

The Shelby County Health Department (SCHD) announced the partnership with MSCS last week. The health department said it wants to provide more resources for younger people who have been diagnosed with HIV and to be proactive in preventing the disease.

Shelby County has historically had one of the highest new infection rates for HIV in the nation. In May of 2024 The SCHD noted an “alarming increase in newly diagnosed cases of HIV in our community.” Officials said the highest increase affected people aged 14 to 45, and was not “spread evenly throughout the county.”

The spread of HIV among teens rose 50 percent from 2022-2023

“Preliminary data from the Tennessee Department of Health indicates the infection rate for people aged 15 to 19 in Shelby County increased by about 50 percent from 2022 to 2023,” the health department said in a statement. “Rates of new HIV cases among young people aged 15 to 24 years old in Shelby County are more than five times higher than the same age group in the United States overall.”

Shelby County Health Department director and health officer Dr. Michelle Taylor said that the impact of HIV and STIs on young people is “significant” and is further complicated by stigma and “a lack of access to healthcare resources.”

“Rates of new HIV cases among young people aged 15 to 24 years old in Shelby County are more than five times higher than the same age group in the United States overall.”

Shelby County Health Department

Prior to this announcement the health department, United Way of Greater Nashville, and John Snow, Inc.(JSI) hosted the first Shelby County HIV summit in October at the FedEx Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis. The summit not only facilitated conversations on how to coordinate efforts about HIV awareness and prevention, but how to address rising rates in Shelby County, which Taylor said represents a renewed sense of commitment to teamwork.

Taylor said, during these conversations, people realized that the health department had not been in MSCS, the largest school district in the state, since before the pandemic.

“It was a renewed sense of urgency to say, ‘Hey, why aren’t we in the schools?’” Taylor said. “Or, if we’re in the schools, ‘Why is it limited?’”

As a result of these conversations, Taylor and her team provided a memorandum of understanding to increase the health department’s presence at schools.

“Memphis Shelby County Schools services 106,000 students and a lot of those students are adolescents, people we know we need to educate with comprehensive sex education and teach them how to best protect their health in every way,” Taylor said. “We’re super excited.”

According to Taylor, education plays a large role in diminishing stigma and engaging young people. She said this still stands as a barrier to addressing HIV.

“Here in the traditional South, in what we know as ‘The Bible Belt,’ a lot of times stigma can get in the way,” Taylor said. “Stigma and stigmatizing people who are living with HIV gets us nowhere. Especially when we know even if you’re living with HIV you can live a long, fruitful life.”

Taylor said that HIV prevention and treatment have come a long way, resulting in more care for those living with the disease, which can aid in conversations that seek to address stigma.

“This valuable partnership with MSCS will help us provide our young people with the information, screenings, and preventive care they need to protect themselves. I am grateful to the Shelby County Board of Education and Memphis-Shelby County Schools leadership for putting the health of students and families first in making this beneficial collaboration possible,” Taylor said.

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LeMoyne-Owen Partners with Black Aids Institute Through HBCU-Centered Consortium

Photo Credit: LeMoyne Owen via Facebook

Students at LeMoyne-Owen College will have the opportunity to increase dialogue in Memphis regarding HIV prevention and care, and to also contribute to the nationwide fight for equity and wellness.

The Black AIDS Institute (BAI) has partnered with the school for the launch of its Black HIV Epidemic (BHIVE) program. LeMoyne-Owen was chosen along with Jarvis Christian University, Voorhees University, and Johnson C. Smith University for the Historically Black College and University (HBCU)-centered consortium.

BHIVE is funded by the Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA). Officials said the goal helps in their mission to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by engaging with students at these universities through education and internship programs.

Grazell Howard, board chair at BAI said they have the challenge and the opportunity to “revolutionize how we prevent and care for persons living with HIV.” She noted that these people are “thriving and living,” but that they also face the same morbidities that Black people do.

“We can no longer just talk about HIV,” Howard said. “ We have to speak about HIV and Black wellness in ways that our entire Black community can hear them.”

Shelby County has historically had one of the highest new infection rates for HIV in the nation. The Shelby County Health Department posted a notice on its website in May saying it had noted an “alarming increase in newly diagnosed cases of HIV in our community. Officials said the highest increase affected people aged 14 to 45, and was not “spread evenly throughout the county.”

According to AIDSVu , Black people accounted for 84.1 percent of new diagnoses in Shelby County in 2021, while accounting for 49.8 percent of the population.

The Black community is sometimes thought of as “diseased-burdened,” said, Howard. The prevalence of such problems as infant mortality and maternal child health is not because Black people “are so sick,” she said, but rather because these communities have been historically and systemically neglected in diagnoses, treatment, and care. 

The HIV virus affects those in minority populations more than others, but advocates and community leaders say that the “problem has never been strictly medical.” In 2023, James E.K. Hildreth, president of Meharry Medical College, said a broader approach is required, specifically honing in on community leaders and organizations and the role they play in ending the virus. 

“To truly end the epidemic, we need community solutions that work in the context of those communities,” Hildreth said. “We also need to have communities work hand in hand — scientific community and healthcare providers.”

Howard said that being unapologetically Black and practicing activism every day has always been at the center of the work, but now they are adding revolutionizing treatment, prevention, and intergenerational care to their mission and message.

“We must be multi-generational in the message, and we must be true to ourselves,” Howard said. “We have to sterilize stigma within the race. What do I mean by that? We cannot have homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia.”

Howard said BAI is “radically partnering” and that this is where engaging students at colleges like LeMoyne-Owen proves to be both important and intentional, because HBCUs have long been bases of the Black community. The partnership allows them to bring communication and curriculum that can engage the Black community culturally.

“Historically Black colleges are hubs and nuclei in Black communities, whether you’re a college degree person or not,” Hildreth said. “Long before you and I were born, people would come to that campus, because that’s where the Black brilliant minds were. That’s where we could go to speak and think and create.”

BHIVE offers an approach that Howard said is “unapologetically Black.” The curriculum seeks to dismantle stigma in the race with a six-module course with components to be completed online and with practicum and internship opportunities available in the community.

“The community is friends to a campus and campus is friends to a community,” Howard said. “That will be this kind of symbiotic relationship which can go beyond HIV. If we do well in HIV, we’re going straight to wellness. If we can tackle HIV in our community and bend the tide of the virus, we can bend the tide for everything else. If we have a lot of pastors and university presidents — as they have at the schools I have named — we will be better off, because those leaders are courageous enough to know an HBCU campus is the hub for everything that impacts a community.”

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Researchers and Community Leaders Seek Equity-Driven Approach to End HIV

(Credit: Testalize.me on Unsplash)

While strides are being made to end the HIV epidemic, it is still considered a “worsening public health crisis in the United States.” It has also proven to disproportionately affect Black Americans.

Darwin Thompson, director of public affairs at Gilead Sciences, said there is also a disproportionate impact in the southern United States. Information released by Gilead Sciences and Meharry Medical College said “southern states accounted for 51 percent of new HIV diagnoses in 2020.” 

“To add onto these troubling statistics, Black Americans make up 42 percent of new HIV diagnoses. A higher proportion than any other racial or ethnic group,” said Thompson.

In Tennessee, Thompson said Black Americans accounted for 58 percent of new HIV diagnoses. He also said there has been a “sharp increase” in legislative attacks against the LGBTQ+ community and other groups that are more affected by HIV.

Thompson said while HIV is no longer considered a “death sentence,” a new “equity-driven” approach is required to address the social and cultural issues that contribute to the spread of the disease. “Many people who live in the southern U.S. face a multitude of serious societal and systemic challenges that fuel the epidemic including the burden of poverty, stigma, prejudice, low health literacy, and lack of insurance and access to care,” said Thompson.

In hopes of collaborating with community-based organizations, Gilead launched its COMPASS initiative in 2017 for “HIV advocacy focused on evidence-based policies.” One of the partners of the COMPASS initiative is Relationships Unleashed, a nonprofit organization based in Memphis. 

Gwendolyn Clemons,  executive director of Relationships Unleashed, said the mission of the organization is personal to her, as she lost her sister, who died a year after being diagnosed with HIV. “The lack of education and understanding of HIV in the Black community, along with stigma associated with it, both exist in our community,” Clemons said. 

Clemons said Shelby County has one of the highest new infection rates for HIV. In March, the Flyer reported that Shelby County ranked number three in “incidence rates of new HIV infections in the United States,” and the disease disproportionately affected those in minority populations.

“One area in particular that we found problematic in Memphis, was the continuous rise of new HIV diagnosis in Black, same-gender loving men, and Black cisgender women,” said Clemons. “The city that we love so much has continuously been ranked in the top 10 of diagnoses for years.”

James E.K. Hildreth, president of Meharry Medical College, said the problem of HIV has never been “strictly medical.” He said that a broader approach is required, specifically honing in on community leaders and organizations and the role they play in ending the virus.

“To truly end the epidemic, we need community solutions that work in the context of those communities,” said Hildreth. “We also need to have communities work hand in hand — scientific community and healthcare providers.”