WHEN WE think about AIDS, most college students probably worry about a disease that has become a global epidemic, a disease that is under-diagnosed, under-treated, and threatens to wipe out whole age demographics in certain parts of the globe if drastic action isn't taken. When we think about AIDS, most college students probably don't think about it personally. We probably don't think over our lives recently and examine it for any behaviors that could have exposed us to HIV. We almost certainly don't think over our medical records and wonder if it's time to get a routine AIDS test.
"Youth in general, that have any kind of risk, they are having unprotected sex, or using drugs for example, they tend to be more vulnerable because they aren't getting tested," said Tamika Allen, a worker at AIDS/HIV Services Group. To a certain extent, it's not our fault if we don't think about getting tested for HIV. For the most part, HIV infection is not an STI that is on the general college consciousness, and HIV tests are not given out or encouraged with any particular regularity. In an effort to combat this attitude and the low testing rate among college age students, today, which is National Black HIV/AIDS awareness day, from 9 am to 4 pm in Newcomb Hall room 168, ASG will be offering free, confidential, oral HIV tests.
No matter what your ethnicity, taking a good minute right now to think about whether or not to get tested is a good idea. Although student health also offers free, confidential testing, there are several reasons that ASG also providing testing is really beneficial to University students and might be a better option for some students.
The first is simply ease. Student health offers a combination of testing and counseling. Required pre- and post-test counseling allow students to receive professional support during the testing process and also provide students with both positive and negative results with helpful resources. However, for those who would prefer not to have counseling, and want a quick test, ASG provides that. The ASG test will also return results in 20 minutes, whereas student health returns results in one month (for free) or one week (for $86).
The second reason, though, has less to do with personal risk and prevention and more with general awareness. Although student health is always available for testing, most students probably aren't aware of this test until they have a reason to believe they have been exposed to HIV. With an advertised free, painless, and open test however, students are more likely to think about simply getting the HIV test as a check-up or safeguard. Thinking of the HIV test in this way also encourages this attitude later in life and may help to encourage future regular testing.
Lastly, having a community organization host a test-site at the University informs students that there are resources outside of the University for getting tested or for those who are already HIV positive. In addition to ASG, which offers free and confidential testing, the Charlottesville Health Department offers free anonymous testing.
In the United States today, over a million people are living with HIV and around a quarter of those are unaware of the infection. Almost 40,000 new cases of HIV are diagnosed every year, and as of 2005, more than half a million Americans had died of AIDS. Yet Americans consistently view AIDS as a mostly foreign threat. The past eight years have seen a substantial increase in abstinence-only education, which completely ignores teaching sexually active teenagers how to prevent the spread of HIV. Although America gives the largest amount of funding to international AIDS-iniatives, the United States itself has no real solid plan for dealing with AIDS among it's home turf. And, whereas in many other countries antiretroviral drugs are virtually free because of international aid, they are still unaffordable for many in the United States.
Having an open day of testing at the University is a good, small step for helping students, at least, overcome this consciousness. I highly recommend getting the test, if for no other reason than it's free, it's convenient, and it's painless. If not though, it's worth the time to think whether you need the test and to remember to keep thinking about it in the future.
Margaret Sessa-Hawkins's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily.com
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