Community health organizations gathered Thursday at Samuel Torres Park in Northeast Rochester to provide health education. The event coincides with the end of National Latino HIV Testing Month.
The loud music and a bouncy house contrast with a stark statistic: rates of new HIV transmissions among Latinos in the U.S. are 3 times higher than that of Caucasians, according to 2010 numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Community health workers like Luis Alberto Lespier hope to decrease those numbers. He has been infected with the disease for 25 years and does community outreach for the Ibero American Action League and Trilium Health. Lespier connected people with on-the-spot HIV testing. Lespier says he tells people to pass on what they’ve learned about HIV and AIDS, so everyone will get educated.
Shalym Nater is a youth mentor for Ibero. He says some may find an event like this is less intimidating than getting tested at a clinic. "Sometimes people don’t what to go to the clinics because of all of the stigma around getting tested, but we do it in an open park, family friendly event, so they feel comfortable," he says.
Organizers expect to test more than 60 people for Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV.