The document analyzes geographic data on women with HIV/AIDS in New York City. It finds the highest numbers are in the Bronx, Harlem, Lower East Side, and Central Brooklyn. However, the highest rates are concentrated in the South and Central Bronx and parts of Harlem and Central Brooklyn. Unlike men, the highest concentration of women with HIV/AIDS falls within the highest poverty neighborhoods. Similarly, it falls within the highest incarceration rate neighborhoods. This suggests factors like poverty and incarceration may be more related to high rates in women than sexual orientation for men. The document recommends improving and tailoring HIV/AIDS services for women in these high-risk neighborhoods.

3. Background As part of that plan the Collaborative conducted a community mapping project of NYC and honed in on those areas in NYC where women are most highly impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and have been able to illustrate how high HIV incidence rates correlate with other significant co-factors such as poverty, incarceration, lack of access to health care, and sexual and reproductive health.

5. Although it is important to know where the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS are, it is at least as critical to know where the highest rates are, because the places with the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS may simply be the places with the most people overall. So to see where the problem is highly concentrated, we have to look at a rate map like this one. Zip Codes with a rate of at least 25 residents per 1000 living with HIV/AIDS are concentrated in the interior Bronx, Harlem, and the Lower West Side.

6. When we separate our map of the rate of people living with HIV/AIDS into two between men and women, we see that the highest rates for each are concentrated in different places. Men are most highly concentrated in the Lower West Side, and less so in parts of Harlem and some of the Bronx interior. While women are more highly concentrated in the South and Central Bronx, and less so in Harlem, and parts of Central Brooklyn.

7. Unlike men, the highest concentration of women living with HIV/AIDS falls almost entirely within the highest poverty neighborhoods in the City.

8. Similarly, the highest concentration of women living with HIV/AIDS also falls almost entirely within the highest incarceration rate neighborhoods in the City.

9. Women living with other sexually transmitted diseases are highly concentrated in the same areas as women living with HIV/AIDS and represent an echo of the same conditions of poverty and incarceration that predominate in these neighborhoods. Together, these maps suggest that the highest rates of women living with HIV/AIDS might be more related to behavior associated with neighborhood conditions of distress, than with behavior associated with sexual orientation as might be more related to men in the City.

11. Women Living with HIV/AIDS New York City

12. As pertains to women living with HIV/AIDS, when we combine both geographical factors—highest number and highest rates—we can identify neighborhood areas (outlined in yellow) whose residents are most in need of support and where service investments would reap the highest returns on public health.

13. Borough Hot Spots & HIV/AIDS Services

14. When we hone in on a more detailed view of Brooklyn, we can more precisely identify those zip code areas with the combined highest number and highest rate of women living with HIV/AIDS. The large cluster of service centers in downtown Brooklyn reflects its role as a hub of other social services. Most of the women living with HIV/AIDS are between 40 – 49. Of the foreign born women in Brooklyn diagnosed with HIV between 2001 – 2006, most are from the Caribbean/West Indies

16. End Thank You