Welcome to the . . .
HIV/AIDS Scavenger Hunt!

(For teens and young adults--but yes, if you are nine or ten, you can do this too; you just need to learn to read graphs and tables, and work with fractions and percentages; you can work with a big brother or sister or with your mom or dad who can help you read these! And yes, grandma and grandpa are welcome too!
There are links to information about tables and graphs at: linkstoresources/tablesandgraphs.html.)

HIV-AIDS in the United States

For QUESTIONS ONE through FOUR, on the geographic distribution of HIV in the United States, go to the Center for Disease Control's HIV-AIDS statistics page. Now, click on the link to see the top ten states for HIV infections in 2011.

(1). What four states were tops for HIV in 2011?

(2). For questions TWO, THREE, and FOUR, you will also need population data, such as that at Wikipedia.org. What four states were tops in population? Are these the same states that you saw at the CDC page? Which state is tops in each case? Which is number two? Number three? Number four? What is different?

(3). Which of these four states has about double the population of which other state or states?

(4).Which state do you think had the highest percentage of people who had tested positive for HIV as of 2011?

For questions FIVE and SIX, Go to Southern HIV/AIDS Strategy's page on the HIV rate in the Southern United States.

(5). What percentage of HIV-positive people lived in the Southern part of the U.S. in 2009?

(6). What percentage of the total U.S. population lived in the South then?

(7). In your opinion (yes, it's o.k. to express an opinion even when you are not sure -- doctors do a lot of speculating), why might the south have a higher incidence of HIV?

Now for question EIGHT go to Kids Health's article on HIV/AIDS, and go to page two.

(8). According Kids' Health, what is the risk for getting HIV from a blood transfusion today in the U.S.?

Now let's look at some trends over time in HIV/AIDS in the U.S. For question NINE, go to the U.S. CDC (Center for Disease Control)'s HIV Surveillance in Adolescence and Young Adults, and look at the table entitled, "Diagnoses of HIV Infection in Adolescents and Young Adults Aged 13-24 Years, by Transmission Category 2008-2011 . . ."

(9). According to the CDC data, among what group (transmission category) did the incidence of new HIV cases increase between 2008 and 2011?

For questions TEN and ELEVEN, go to the CDC's report, Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS --- United States, 1981--2005, and scroll to the bottom table, "Estimated Numbers and Percentages of HIV/AIDS and AIDS cases, by year of diagnosis and selected characteristics -- United States, 1981-2004." The statistics on AIDS during this time period are given in three pairs of columns (making six columns total; ignore the columns with HIV/AIDS data). The first column in each pair shows the number of AIDS cases; the second shows the percentage of a group affected by AIDS, the incidence rate.

(10). For which age groups were the rates of AIDS higher in the 2001-2004 period than they were in the earlier periods? FOr which age groups were the rates lower?

(11). For thought: is there anything different about the data trends reported in this table and the data for 2008 to 2011, which you looked at for question NINE? From the data here for 1981 to 2004, on AIDS transmission by "transmission category" (not age), would you have expected any transmission category to have had an increasing incidence of AIDS or HIV between 2008 and 2011? (Note however that the 2008-2011 data just shows the HIV incidence while the 1981-2004 data looks at HIV and AIDS together. AIDS of course is not HIV but the immune deficiency associated with it, and related illnesses.It is possible to compare the two sets of data but it would be better to compare the earlier data with combined HIV and AIDS data for 2008-2011.)

HIV-AIDS in Texas

For questions TWELVE and THIRTEEN, go to the Texas Department of State Health Services information sheet.

(12). According to the Texas Department of State Health Services one out of how many Texans was living with HIV in 2012?

(13). Again according to the Texas Department of State Health, how does this overall HIV rate for Texans compare with the rate for Black Texans? Is the rate for Black Texans higher or lower than the overall rate for Texans? By approximately how much? (That is, is it about two times higher, a little over two times higher, about two times lower, over two times lower, about three times higher, a little over three times higher, about three times lower, about five times higher, or what?)

HIV-AIDS Worldwide

For questions FOURTEEN through NINETEEN you will need information from anFAR. First go to amfAR's statistics on women.

(14). According to anfAR, what is the leading cause of death worldwide for women who are in their reproductive years (15 to 49 years of age)?

Now go to amfAR's Global Statistics page. This page also reports the number of people worldwide were living with HIV in 2012 along with how many of those are under 15. And it reports the number of people with new infections of HIV there were worldwide in 2012 and again how many of people with new infections were under 15. For questions SIXTEEN, SEVENTEEN, and EIGHTEEN, however, you need to calculate percentages.

(15). On what continent did most people with HIV infections live in 2012?

(16). What percentage of people living with HIV in 2012 were under 15?

(17). What percentage of people with new HIV infections in 2012 were under age 15? (Note: 100,000 is 1/10 or 10 percent of a million; 200,000 is 1/10 or 10 percent of two million; and so on.)

(18). Is the proportion of young people in both groups about the same? Whether it is about the same or not, is the exact percentage of total people living with HIV who are under fifteen higher or lower than the percentage of people with new HIV infections who are under 15?

(19). For thought: as people live longer and better lives with HIV/AIDS, how does that contribute to the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS? Does it make the number go up? Or down?

For questions TWENTY and TWENTY-ONE, you will compare mortality data from a news article on HIV-AIDS in Switzerland with the World Health Organization's information on global mortality.

(20). Go to the news article first, at http://www.eatg.org/news/168007/AIDS_death_rate_drops,_non-AIDS_cancer_rate_rises_in_Swiss_group. In 2013, what did HIV-positive people who died in Switzerland usually die from? Did they die from something doctors believed to be directly linked to HIV?*

(21). Now go to the World Health Organization (WHO)'s site's information on TB, which also mentions HIV-AIDS. Worldwide, what were the number one and number two causes of death due to disease according to this 2013 report?

For questions TWENTY-TWO and TWENTY-THREE, go to: http://www.southafrica.info/about/health/hiv-111212.htm#.Us8FyPtA_k8.

(22). Note first that since many people with HIV do not get tested for it, the most common way to estimate the rate of HIV in a population is to look at the rate of HIV in pregnant women, who are tested for HIV. Has the estimated rate of HIV in South Africa remained constant, gone up, or gone down in the last few years?

(23). For thought: how does South Africa calculate the rate of new infections in South Africa? What rate does it use to estimate the rate of new infections? Do you agree or disagree with its methodology here, with its way of estimating the new infection rate?

Bonus: The Cost of HIV-AIDS to Texans

These questions are a bit tricky. You will need to revisit your answer to question ONE. And you will need a bit of math. You'll need to understand fractions and percentages. Go back to the Texas Department of State Health Services information sheet.

(24). What percentage of people in Texas who had been diagnosed with HIV as of 2012 were getting medical care? (Be careful -- the Texas Department of State Health Services page tells you the fraction of people with HIV who were not getting medical care, not the percentage who were getting it. You can either turn that fraction into a percentage and then subtract it from 100%, or you can just use fractions for now, and subtract that fraction from the number 1, and wait till later to convert the result to a percentage.)

(25). How much does the annual medical care for all Texans with HIV cost per Texan? (You'll need to look again at the percentage of Texans who have been diagnosed HIV positive, multiply this by the percentage of these actually getting medical care, and then multiply this amount (which should be well below 1% or 1 out of 100) by the average cost for each person's medical care (the final result should be above ten dollars for each Texan but below one-hundred dollars each).

End of Scavenger Hunt!

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* Note: the non-HIV related cancers include lung cancer, associated with a higher incidence of smoking, and other cancers, some of which people with AIDS may be more susceptible to.