Aside from acting as NCAP's director for six years, Irene Vernon is also the Department Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at CSU, where she continues her 15-year study of AIDS in minorities, specifically Native Americans.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Vernon lived with two gay men in San Francisco and watched first-hand how what was widely believed to be a homosexual disease transformed into what is now known as worldwide pandemic.

"Back then I thought it had nothing to do with me. I'm a woman and a minority," she said. "As it changed, trends changed. It started moving into communities of color, and suddenly it has everything to do with me. AIDS is the number one killer of African American women -- that's just shocking to me."

A study conducted by the Center for Disease Control in 2005 revealed that African Americans make up 49 percent of AIDS victims in the U.S.

"Diseases have no borders," she said. "It's worldwide. It's not a gay disease. It's contracted heterosexually. In parts of Africa women are infected at higher rates than men."

Though Vernon's studies focus specifically on AIDS in Native American communities, which have the lowest numbers of HIV infections of all minorities, she said patterns she finds in her study of these isolated communities are the same she sees nationwide:

- Minorities are overwhelmingly in poverty

- People in poverty often do not receive AIDS education

- People in poverty often do not have access to health care

- Heavy drug users are typically impoverished, and often share needles

"AIDS continues to flourish, and it's flourishing in communities that are in poverty," she said.

This story is an excerpt from a Collegian article. Visit The Collegian to read the full story.