Latinos make up 18.4% of the more than 19.5 million NYS residents and make up 29% of New York City’s population. Latinos/as are a growing population faced with dire health conditions and uneven access to services. Hispanics are more likely than non-Hispanic whites within the same age cohort to report being in fair or poor health, indicating a need for health services. There is substantial evidence that Hispanics’ health care needs are largely unmet. Latinos/as encounter several barriers to health care access: lack of health insurance, transportation, and child care; underutilization of preventive health services; and limited availability of linguistic and culturally competent services.

When focusing on HIV we observe that the social determinants of health—“the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including the health system”—weigh heavily in the cause and course of HIV across all racial/ethnic groups. Behavioral risk factors, while important, do not fully explain the racial disparity. This racial gap is not the result of high-risk behavior alone, but structural inequalities that make them more likely to come in contact with the disease and less likely to access care or treatment. The glaring health inequities revealed by the distribution of HIV demonstrate that race is a social index of isolation and impoverishment, disregard, and disempowerment rather than a proxy for divergent sexual attitudes or behaviors. In New York State HIV disproportionately affects Latinos at a rate 5.7 times higher than the rate for Whites. Latino men who have sex with men make up 59% of all HIV diagnoses for Latinos, making them the subgroup most affected by HIV among Latinos. More alarming is knowing that 90% of all new male infections among Latinos in the 13-24 age category were male-to-male contact. Latinos being connected to care at a much later stage of HIV diagnosis or more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS.

Currently, some of the health disparities that shape the spread of HIV are being addressed by The Plan to End the AIDS Epidemic by 2020, Prevention Agenda 2013-2017, the Medicaid Redesign Team, and the New York State of Health. All promising, and much attention on The Plan to End the AIDS Epidemic by 2020, but we need to assure an implementation strategy is set in place that will accomplish our state’s public health goals and reach Latinos appropriately.

Overaching Goals for Reunion Latina
By the end of Reunion Latina, participants will have an:

• Understanding of The Plan to End the AIDS Epidemic by 2020, and be able to examine the implementation challenges.
• Understanding the Healthcare Needs and the Diversity of Latinos in NYS