Aboriginal AIDS Epidemic

Aboriginal people in Canada represent 3.3% of the population and yet aboriginal people accounted for 10% of all the AIDS cases reported to the Canadian Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control in 1999. As Health Canada reports, this trend showed a decline in 2000 and 2001. However the first half of 2002 showed a marked increase with aboriginal people representing 14.1% of all AIDS cases.

So why are aboriginal people so disproportionately represented in the number of AIDS cases in Canada? Perhaps for the same reasons that they are more likely to suffer from higher crime, poorer education, a lower standard of living, a higher rate of drug use, higher rates of chronic medical conditions and infectious diseases, and higher unemployment rates. A history of oppression, injustice, abuse in residential schools, widespread discrimination, a lack of access to resources, a loss of land and culture...

Read the rest of this article by Bethina Abrahams in the AIDS topic of the Social Issues section here at Suite 101.