Petrelis Files

SF, With CDC Method, Lowers the HIV Rate

There is nothing for me to say, except that I was hugely wrong in my prediction last week that the department of health, using new CDC methodology to take an educated guess at the recent HIV rate for the city, would revise the numbers upward. That didn't happen at the HIV Prevention Planning Council meeting on Thursday.

Susan Scheer, PhD, MPH, presented her case for why and how the DPH used new assay tests and mathematical modeling to arrive at a figure for new infections in 2006, and she did it with 25 slides that need more scrutiny by activists and reporters who follow these statistical matters. I encourage you to view all of Scheer's slides, which are posted here.

This slide, number 22, was the one HPPC members, and myself, were most intrigued by, because the CDC methodology shows estimated infections for 2006 were remarkably lower than those estimated by DPH in its consensus estimate:


Today's Bay Area Reporter blog has a post about Scheer's new figures and writer Matthew S. Bajko includes positive quotes from AIDS Office leaders over their colleague's estimates.

Something right and good is happening with reducing HIV infections in San Francisco, but the big things missing, as the estimates and annual epi reports continue to pour out of DPH illustrating a sustained drop, are a collective pat on the gay community's back and public forums or social marketing campaigns from AIDS Inc explaning the declines and encouraging gays to continue what they're doing to keep numbers down.

How low must the numbers fall before gay men in San Francisco are praised for the decline?