ITHACA, N.Y. -- Black women in the United States should be the focus of more HIV/AIDS education because they strongly influence the quality and survival of their families and communities, says a Cornell University expert on AIDS who is co-editor of a new book on the topic.

Two-thirds of HIV/AIDS cases in the United States occur among black Americans, and AIDS is the second-highest cause of death among black American women, ages 18 to 44.

"African-American women also are the most disenfranchised and least accurately represented population impacted by AIDS or in AIDS-related research and writing," says Ednita M. Wright, assistant dean of students for diversity education and outreach at Cornell. She is the co-editor with Dorie J. Gilbert, assistant professor of social work at the University of Texas at Austin, of African American Women and HIV/AIDS: Critical Responses (Praeger Publishers, 2003).

"By 2005, we expect that 60 to 70 percent of U.S. HIV/AIDS cases will be among African- Americans, particularly young people," says Wright. Wright and Gilbert note that although new medications can bring about remission, HIV/AIDS remains a fatal disease decimating black American communities.

The writers have attempted, Wright says, to offer the most recent and effective strategies in prevention and intervention. In particular they offer culturally sensitive models that meet the specific needs of black American women and that can garner community-based support so that the HIV/AIDS programs can be delivered as a coherent community response.

"Historically, African Americans have been considered as a homogenous group when it comes to HIV/AIDS, yet they are not. Policies need to take into account that African-American communities are not generic," says Wright, who supervises and develops student programs that enhance diversity efforts on campus. "Policy-makers need to understand that each community has its own values and norms."

Before Wright joined Cornell in 1999, she was an associate professor of social work at Syracuse University, where she also completed her doctorate in 1995 through the Maxwell School of Citizenship. Her doctoral dissertation was titled "Deep from within the Well: African American Women Living with HIV/AIDS." The book includes a chapter by Wright with the same title.

The 19-chapter, 288-page book has a foreword by Mindy Thompson Fullilove, M.D., professor of clinical psychiatry and public health at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University. Chapters focus on substance abuse; the impact of HIV/AIDS infection among women on families and communities; barriers to effective family coping; infected children and adolescents; and a host of HIV/AIDS prevention and intervention strategies that have been particularly successful in black American communities.

For a review copy, email text@greenwood.com or fax (203) 222-1502.

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o Details about the book, including a Table of Contents:

http://www.greenwood.com/books/BookDetail.asp?dept_id=1&sku=C7127