We can always use more STI-testing, no?
As part of an initiative to increase HIV and AIDS awareness, the Bronx has started The Bronx Knows, a program to provide Bronx residents with safe, accessible, confidential HIV and AIDS testing in an effort to counter the HIV epidemic that has hit all of NYC but especially the Bronx. The program targets people aged 18 to 64, but provides people of all ages with the opportunity to get tested, stressing the importance of knowing your health in order to decrease the risk of transmitting the disease.
The group hopes to test 200,000 people, and is currently in the 150,000 range. Find out more about this program, which hopes to create an example other towns can model themselves after in terms of making testing accessible and increasing awareness and sexual education. The project sounds wonderful, and I’m surprised I am just now hearing about it, though it has been going on since June 2008.
Notably, people under the age of 18 do not need parental permission to receive testing, a measure which I fully support. It also sounds like the program doesn’t shove information down your throat, or try to tell you what you should be doing with your body, but rather is more concerned with getting people tested at over 60 community sites, and then offering opportunities for advice-seeking, etc. if people choose to take them up on it.
Sounds good. Why wouldn’t you support information dissemination there? The target to cutting HIV infection is discouraging bad behaviors, ie unsafe safe and needle drug use.