NCJ Number
121871
Date Published
1988
Length
181 pages
Annotation
This report presents what the U.S. House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families has learned about the threat of AIDS to infants, young children, and teenagers and how its spread among this population can be prevented.
Abstract
AIDS is rapidly emerging as a major health threat to large numbers of infants and young children. Already strained services for prenatal care, family planning, and drug treatment are faced by the soaring number of women with or at risk of AIDS. The majority of young AIDS victims are in poor, educationally-disadvantaged families; black and Hispanic children compose the vast majority of pediatric AIDS cases. HIV-infected children are most often treated through expensive inpatient hospital care, although expanded home and nonhospital services are more humane and cost-effective. Pediatric AIDS also threatens an already overburdened foster care system. The number of reported AIDS cases among teens is low, but adolescent sexual behaviors and attitudes place them at risk. Adolescents with hemophilia constitute the most HIV-infected teen group to date. Runaway and homeless youth as well as minority youth in urban centers are at greatest risk of HIV infection and the most difficult to reach with educational programs. Prevention demands appropriate and clear sex education beginning at early ages. The Federal response to the problem has been underfunded, uncoordinated, and insufficient. 84 references.