Action Plan Alabama's target population, health care disparities, and need for intervention. The study's findings indicated that the southern states, particularly the Deep South states that include Alabama, experienced the highest rates of new HIV infections with 35% of new HIV infections but having only 22% of the U.S. population. The White House recognized the disproportionate effect by including persons living in the Southern United States in the 9th Indicator of Progress of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy for a reduction in disparities in the rate of new diagnoses. Another set of important findings is that HIV risk-reduction interventions that have proven to be effective in general populations are proving to be less effective among persons who are homeless/unstably housed than among their housed counterparts, including counseling-based, needle exchange, and other behavioral interventions. Unstably housed needle-exchange participants are twice as likely to report high-risk receptive needle sharing than are the stably housed participants. Female drug users living with unstable housing conditions report higher levels of HIV drug and sex-related HIV risk behavior than do their housed counterparts, and their levels of behavioral change over time are lower. HIV health care disparities are also a factor in HIV infections. As observed by researchers from the higher levels of HIV observed in the blood of CDC, “[t]he
Action Plan Alabama's target population, health care disparities, and need for intervention. The study's findings indicated that the southern states, particularly the Deep South states that include Alabama, experienced the highest rates of new HIV infections with 35% of new HIV infections but having only 22% of the U.S. population. The White House recognized the disproportionate effect by including persons living in the Southern United States in the 9th Indicator of Progress of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy for a reduction in disparities in the rate of new diagnoses. Another set of important findings is that HIV risk-reduction interventions that have proven to be effective in general populations are proving to be less effective among persons who are homeless/unstably housed than among their housed counterparts, including counseling-based, needle exchange, and other behavioral interventions. Unstably housed needle-exchange participants are twice as likely to report high-risk receptive needle sharing than are the stably housed participants. Female drug users living with unstable housing conditions report higher levels of HIV drug and sex-related HIV risk behavior than do their housed counterparts, and their levels of behavioral change over time are lower. HIV health care disparities are also a factor in HIV infections. As observed by researchers from the CDC, “[t]he higher levels of HIV observed in the blood of