AIDS And HIV: Chicago By The Numbers

Story by Erica Demarest, courtesy of the Windy City Times:

Between 1990 and 2010, the city of Chicago saw a 39 percent decrease in newly reported AIDS diagnoses, with the number of new annual cases dropping from 1,024 to 621.

The community areas in which newly diagnosed AIDS patients live have shifted fairly dramatically over the past two decades. In 1990, most new diagnoses were reported on the North Side, with almost every neighborhood north of the Loop experiencing high counts.

By 2010, however, these numbers had thinned significantly with one exception: the far North Side lakefront neighborhoods.

"Edgewater, Uptown and Rogers Park have always been epicenters of the epidemic," said John Peller, vice president of policy at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. "It's hard to explain. I think that's where many [ gay ] people choose to live for a variety of reasons." Gay people have consistently been one of the largest groups to contract AIDS, Peller explains.

As rates on the North Side have diminished--in some cases by as much as 88 percent--rates on the South and West Sides have remained stagnant or grown.

Read the whole story here.