Posted on December 4, 2009 by Giselle Routhier As recently reported in the Huffington Post, a new study done by Health People reports that New York City’s progress in reducing death rates among residents with HIV/AIDS in the Bronx and Brooklyn has collapsed since 2006–the year the Bloomberg administration decided to redistribute the city’s federal AIDS funding towards services in Manhattan. For several years before 2006, the sizeable amount of federal funds given to New York City to combat AIDS (commonly referred to as Ryan White funding), was widely dispersed throughout the city, bringing accessible care down to the neighborhood level. This was especially important in the Boroughs of the Bronx and Brooklyn, where sixty percent of the city’s women with AIDS reside, many in poor neighborhoods. Yet, in 2006, the Bloomberg administration started a large-scale redistribution of funds and concentrated roughly 60% of the federal monies to Manhattan medical centers and services agencies, where only 30% of the city’s residents living with HIV/AIDS reside. The report written by Health People shows that the resulting changes in annual deaths from HIV/AIDS was significant. Before the funding redistribution, all boroughs had almost equal slowdowns in death rates resulting from AIDS. Afterwards, the Bronx and Brooklyn saw a significant reduction in their slowdown of deaths. More specifically, women in the Bronx fared the worse, with major progress in reducing deaths collapsing. The report states: “As a group, Bronx women lost the most funding and services; indeed, key Ryan White services were so completely withdrawn from Bronx women with HIV/AIDS that by, the end of 2006, only 3% of all Ryan White clients in the city receiving Supportive Counseling/Family Stabilization services—services specifically intended to help stabilize women with AIDS raising children—lived in the Bronx. The result was to derail the significant progress the Bronx had been making in keeping women—and mothers—alive.” Read the full report here.
