Sunday, April 10, is National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD) 2022. The annual observance and several events throughout the week are led by the nonprofit Advocates for Youth.

Nearly one in five people diagnosed with HIV in the United States in 2019 were 13 to 24 years old, and it’s estimated that nearly half the people in that age group living with HIV don’t know their status, according to an NYHAAD fact sheet from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The youth awareness day offers a chance “to educate the public about the impact of HIV and AIDS on young people,” according to Advocates for Youth. “The day also highlights the HIV prevention, treatment and care campaigns of young people in the U.S.”

For NYHAAD, the organization joins Black, Gay, Stuck at home, a group that promotes African-American LGBTQ film, to host a virtual film screening of the 2017 documentary Check It and a related youth panel (watch a trailer for the film at the top of this article). You can register here for the screening, which takes place tonight at 9 p.m. ET. Visit Advocates for Youth for a list of other events and programs.

AIDSVu.org, which maps HIV data and presents sharable graphics, provides more context to the need  for HIV education and prevention among young people, writing:

Many young people who are at risk for HIV receive insufficient sex education and experience health-related inequities that are linked to low testing rates, high rates of sexually transmitted diseases, and low condom use.…

 

Among youth, communities of color are disproportionately affected by HIV. Compared to their white and Hispanic/Latinx counterparts, young Black men and women experience greater rates of HIV.

• In 2019, Black men represented 54% of all young men living with HIV.

• In the same year, Black women represented 61% of all young women living with HIV.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a valuable tool in HIV prevention— n 2019, young people under age 24 accounted for 21% of new HIV diagnoses but only 14% of PrEP users. In addition, young people face challenges in accessing and maintaining HIV treatment—only 63% of youth with HIV were virally suppressed in 2019, the lowest rate of any age group.

 

The HIV epidemic among youth is impacted by a wide range of health disparities and cultural factors, including stigma and socioeconomic challenges. Social determinants of health, such as poverty and unemployment, can negatively affect HIV-related health outcomes by creating competing priorities and hindering access to basic health care:

• In 2020, an estimated 16% of youth under 18 were living below the poverty line, compared to just 10% of adults.

 

• In the same year, 9% of youth under the age of 19 were uninsured, up 1.6% from 2018.

To learn more about other HIV awareness days, including a calendar you can download and print, visit “2022 HIV/AIDS Awareness Days.”