In the 30 years since the first cases of HIV were diagnosed, it has been said that the disease is no longer a death sentence. I’m sure this statement is probably more true in the United States than other countries. Here’s the interesting thing: AIDS is probably more prevalent in your town than you think. Don’t believe me? Check out AIDSVu, the most detailed publicly available look at HIV cases throughout the U.S.
Epidemiologist Patrick Sullivan, the principal researcher behind the project, was inspired to create the map by his 14-year tenure at the CDC’s National HIV Surveillance Program. “These surveillance data are so valuable and so many people work with great diligence to make sure that they’re right,” he explains. “At CDC we produced them in tables of data surveillance reports. I felt like, wouldn’t it be great if people could see and understand what these data are really about?”
And so AIDSVu was born. Sullivan and his team have been working since January of 2010 on putting together data from the CDC and from some individual cities.
The interactive map allows users to search cases by state, county, and even zip code in New York City and Washington, D.C., two of the more heavily affected cities. The map is also searchable by gender, ethnicity, and age.
AIDSVu is currently working off 2008 data from the CDC, but the information will be updated annually (next year will have 2009 data, and so on). Individual cities may provide zip code data at any point.
Image source: Aidsvu
For more articles by this author, click here.
