My decision to come to Trinidad and Tobago was influenced by my personal experiences working with HIV/AIDS patients and as a peer health educator on HIV/AIDS prevention. During my last year in college, I was a research assistant at the University Of Maryland School Of Medicine, and my duties included recruiting HIV positive patients at an infectious diseases clinic for a research study. I was very bothered by my experiences in that clinic, one being the fact that 90% of the patients I saw in the clinic were people of African descent. By interacting with them, they opened up to me and told me how they got infected. The vast majority of them said they got infected through intravenous drug use as Baltimore city has a serious drug problem, but the rest of them mostly got infected from having unprotected sex and many said they lacked previous knowledge of HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention.
As a young black woman, it really bothers me that people of African descent worldwide are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, in addition to women and youths who are also highly affected. Statistics show that sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases; the Caribbean has the second highest rate of HIV infection; in the United States, black people make up only 12% of the population but have the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases, and black women account for 72% of all new HIV/AIDS cases among women in the United States. Also, over 50% of new HIV infection occurs in young people aged 15-24. As you can see, people of African descent are the most affected ethnic group in the world, hence my inspiration to get involved and join the fight against HIV/AIDS.
There"s a saying that if you can"t do big things, do small things in great ways. I felt like the most I could do at this point in my life was to contribute towards raising awareness of HIV/AIDS and give people the tools they need to protect themselves. I received training from the After-School Institute and got certified by the Baltimore City Health Department as a peer health educator on HIV/AIDS prevention. Through my interaction with young people, I realized how little many of them knew about HIV/AIDS, how it is transmitted and the risks involved in some of their behaviors. But I also met young people who had good knowledge of HIV/AIDS transmission and safe sex, but that did not stop them from engaging in risky sexual behaviors.
This is how I became interested in doing research on behavior and attitude modification as a tool of HIV/AIDS prevention. I was curious to study the relationship between people"s knowledge of HIV/AIDS and their sexual behaviors. I wanted to find out why people who have knowledge of HIV/AIDS still engaged in risky sexual practices, and also determine if knowledge really was impacting people"s sexual behavior. That way, I could figure out and understand other factors that promote risky sexual behaviors and consequently the spread of HIV/AIDS. Moreover, I was also curious to come to an understanding of why HIV/AIDS is more prevalent among people of African descent. I was interested in finding out whether there are differences in sexual behavior among people of different races within the same culture.
I applied to the Fulbright Program and proposed to do research in Trinidad and Tobago because I learned so much about the diversity in Trinidad from my classmates in college and I also wanted to experience Carnival, something I had always heard about. For my research, I am affiliated with the Department of Community Health of the Faculty of Medical Sciences in the University of the West Indies [medical school]. My objective is to identify the risk factors for HIV/AIDS and assess the barriers to safe sexual practices/condom use. I"m also using the research opportunity to spread knowledge about HIV/AIDS, motivate people to get tested, change their sexual behaviors and attitudes towards safe sex/condom use. I accomplish this by giving my research survey participants HIV/AIDS information pamphlets, my personal article on HIV/AIDS prevention, and through conversations and interactions.
During my stay here in Trinidad, I am actively involved in community outreach/education on HIV/AIDS prevention. I am collaborating with several health and youth organizations such as the National AIDS Program, Queen"s Park Counseling Center and Clinic, Family Planning Association of Trinidad and Tobago, Friends for Life, the youth outreach department of YMCA, and the Cyril Ross HIV/AIDS Orphanage. These organizations provide HIV/AIDS information, voluntary counseling and testing, advocate for the sexual and reproductive health of youths, work to reduce the stigmatization and discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS, and also provide care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS.
In the course of my research and volunteer work at some of these sites, I have learned a lot about the HIV/AIDS situation in Trinidad and many sad personal stories have been shared with me. The most bothersome of all are the married women I encountered that got infected by their HIV-positive husbands who were unfaithful. One of them got tested and found out that she had HIV only after her husband passed away when she saw his death certificate that listed AIDS as the cause of death. I think it is more painful when someone who does the right thing becomes infected due to the wrong doings of someone else. This is the plight of some married women who are faithful to their husbands but whose husbands are unfaithful to them. It becomes more apparent that the choice of a partner should be a very careful one in this day and age when infidelity could result in transmission of a deadly disease such as HIV/AIDS. Also, I was shocked to find out that antiretroviral drugs only recently became available in Trinidad in 2002, meaning that many HIV positive people did not receive early treatment to help prolong their lives.
It has been very rewarding to have the opportunity to contribute towards reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS in Trinidad and Tobago, and I plan to continue helping to reduce the incidence and prevalence of HIV/AIDS among black people worldwide. I would like more people of African descent especially young people to realize the devastation that this disease is causing in our communities and get involved in HIV/AIDS prevention even in little ways, otherwise this deadly disease will continue to threaten our people.