Days after DC’s Department of Health released numbers on the city’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, the Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation released the results of a joint poll conducted in May, which found that Washingtonians are far more concerned about contracting the disease than about any other health-related issue.
The poll asked more than a thousand residents to name what they felt was the most urgent health problem facing the city. HIV/AIDS topped the charts with 36 percent of all responses. Mirroring the DOH report, which found that the disease disproportionately impacts the city’s black population, a quarter of black residents expressed concern about personally contracting the disease; only 10 percent of white respondents reported such a concern.
The second-most-reported issue—affordability of care and insurance—lagged way behind at just 10 percent. According to the poll, nine out of ten white residents reported having private coverage; fewer than half of the city’s black population—47 percent—can say the same.
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