From the Huffington Post Gay Voices: 

Perry N. Halkitis, Ph.D., M.S..Professor of Applied Psychology, Public Health, and Medicine, Steinhardt School, NYU

In 2011 the Institute of Medicine released a historic report documenting the health disparities faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals. This report was call to action for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to address the burgeoning and often underserved health needs of the LGBT population. In the United States these health disparities coincide with an epidemiological shift: the aging of the American population. Due to increases in life expectancy and aging of the “baby boomer” generation, or those born between 1946 and 1964, approximately one third of the United States population will be 55 years or older by 2014.

While no direct population figures exists, extrapolations drawn from multiple sources suggests that within the population of older Americans, approximately 1.2 to 1.4 million will be older gay men, a figure more pronounced in urban areas such as New York City, where it is estimated that approximately 5 percent of gay men are 50 or older. A significant proportion of these older gay men, both nationally and in New York City, live with HIV, and as a group this generation of gay men, to whom I have previously referred as “the AIDS generation,” have all been directly impacted by the epidemic.

Read the full article on the Huffington Post.

From LGBTQ Nation.com:

LOS ANGELES — Sexual minority stress, along with aging-related stress, jeopardizes the mental health of midlife and older gay men, according to a new study published by the American Journal of Public Health.

In the study, sexual minority stress included the men’s perceptions that they needed to conceal their sexual orientation, or that others were uncomfortable with or avoided them because of they are gay.

The study also found that legal marriage for same-sex couples may confer a unique protective effect against poor mental health. Having a same-sex domestic partner or same-sex spouse boosted the emotional health of the studied men, but having a same-sex legal spouse appeared to be the most beneficial relationship arrangement.

Read the full article on the LGBTQ Nation Website.

From the New York Times:

New H.I.V. cases and AIDS deaths are both going steadily down in British Columbia, according to data released last week.

“We’re particularly pleased to see that our treatment-as-prevention strategy has taken off big-time,” said Dr. Julio S. G. Montaner, director of the British Columbia Center for Excellence in H.I.V./AIDS. His center was a pioneer in the strategy, which involves searching aggressively for people at risk of H.I.V. infection, talking them into being tested and putting those who are infected on antiretroviral drugs immediately, which lowers by 96 percent the chances that they will infect others.

To read the full article, go to the New York Times Website.

Recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that many Americans with HIV do not have their condition under control. American Medical News reports:

Of the nation’s nearly 1.2 million people with the illness, only 28% have a suppressed viral load, according to a CDC study published in the Dec. 2 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. A suppressed viral load improves patients’ health and dramatically decreases their risk of transmitting the virus through sexual activity.

Part of the problem is that the antiretroviral treatment has been so effective that some patients do not see the need to regularly take their medication, said Dr. Sharp, director of the Center for Comprehensive Care in New York City. The center is an HIV/AIDS clinic at St. Luke’s/ Roosevelt Hospital.

“It’s hard for people to believe” what can happen if the virus is left untreated, she said.

At the same time, one in five Americans infected with HIV does not know he or she has the condition, the CDC said. Only about half of people diagnosed with HIV receive ongoing medical care and treatment.

To help remedy the problem, the CDC urges doctors to increase testing for HIV during routine medical visits. The agency recommends that doctors test everyone between ages 13 and 64. People at high risk of contracting the virus, including injection drug users and men who have sex with other men, should be tested at least once a year, the CDC says.

Read the full article on amednews.com.

Anthony Silvestre of the Pitt Men's Study

A frank discussion with the Pitt Men’s Study co-investigator, Dr. Anthony Silvestre:

“The battle against AIDS has produced effective prevention interventions that can help people change their unsafe sexual and drug-using behaviors, and effective treatments to keep people who are infected relatively healthy over the long run. However, the war against AIDS is stagnant. The institutional changes that are necessary to stop AIDS, and to prevent the outbreak of other sexually transmitted diseases, have not occurred. Our professional schools, funders of research, our churches and our educational systems have made precious few changes in how they do business. As a society, we have failed to integrate healthy views about sexuality into our everyday lives. We continue to treat it as the stuff of snickering adolescence or of slick merchandizing.

Clearly, there have been major advances in treatment and the prevention of AIDS. There have been few changes in the attitudes that stigmatize the at-risk populations, and that keep us from maturely responding to sexual-health matters in our schools and universities and other major institutions.”

You can read the full interview at Pittsburgh City Paper Online.