Chicago Women of Color Harness Social Media for HIV Education

Young people have been disproportionately affected by sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, in recent years.

In Chicago, people ages 13 to 24 accounted for 71 percent of all STI diagnoses in 2012, and of the women who tested positive for STIs, a full 95 percent were African-American or Hispanic.

That led the AIDS Foundation of Chicago to partner with other health organizations to help reduce the rate of sexually transmitted infections among young women of color.

Project Elevate, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will use social media to educate this at-risk group about STI prevention as well as making testing and treatment resources available to them.

The program is particularly reaching out to transgender women, a group often neglected by health care workers, and it will be run by women of color.