Earlier this weekend, CNN reported the HIV outbreak currently being monitored in southern Indiana ?is worsening.
The virus has been spreading among residents of Scott and Jackson counties since mid-December 2014, and the Center for Disease Control has documented more than 142 people who have been confirmed HIV-positive. For an extremely rural area of the Midwest, this is an unprecedented number of cases.
Unsurprisingly, the virus’ vicious spread has already been linked to undereducation. Dr. Jonathan Mermin, the director of the National Center on HIV/AIDS, told CNN it was “no coincidence” that the demographic contracting HIV in these rural counties were younger individuals who were not yet born in the 1970s and ’80s, when panic about AIDS infected the country more quickly and intensely than the virus itself.
Since that era, disease prevention organizations around the nation have strived to educate citizens about safety when using IV needles. Many, including Mermin, believe a prevalence of injection drugs in Scott and Jackson counties, as well as the frequency of needle sharing between users, is to blame for ?the outbreak.
But prevention programs and organizations should not be bearing the full weight of educating a whole new generation on the spread of deadly conditions, dangers of injection drugs and immense hazard of sharing needles with other users. Citizens must become informed at an early age and at the most grassroots level: in school.
The United States — especially Midwestern states like Indiana — are notoriously lackluster when it comes to prevention education, especially in public schools. Indiana’s health requirements found in Code 20-30-5-7 commands school corporations to “provide instruction on the effects of alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and other substances on the human body.”
But nowhere is it mandated that the instruction be medically accurate, or include disease prevention or containment guidance. Instruction on tobacco use is not even mandated — simply “suggested.”
Of course, such an initiative would require manpower and resources, both of which are extremely scarce in today’s public school climate. The issue lies, therefore, in the gap created by need and ?willingness to meet that need.
A survey conducted by Join Together, a nonprofit organization dedicated to alcohol and drug education, found that teachers are unwilling to take up the task of education. The findings reflected a general sentiment of helplessness and lack of support: “Teachers don’t have the time, training or other resources needed to do the job effectively, regardless of what the state-mandated standards say.”
It comes as no surprise that teachers are hesitant to add more comprehensive, effective drug education to their curriculum considering the absence of state funding, but considering the state of emergency unfolding before us in Scott and Jackson counties, it is immediately obviously imperative that this generation must — via state legislative funding support — receive holistic education surrounding drugs, alcohol, sexual activities and other challenging topics that become relevant in early adulthood.
We must heed the warning of this crisis and urge legislators at the state and national level to implement changes in our school systems via funding for extracurricular education programs and training for staff, because without such reforms, such tragedy can only be expected to reoccur.
sbkissel@indiana.edu
