Methodology
Data on all HIV/AIDS cases reported in each Texas county from 1999-2008 were provided by Texas State Department of Health Services through Dr. Joseph Oppong, my mentor. SPSS software was used to select the cases aged 13-24 at the time of diagnosis. Populations of people aged 13-24 in Texas counties was provided by the 2000 Census. The rate was calculated by dividing the total number of HIV/AIDS cases among ages 13-24 for each county by the total population of ages 13-24 for each county and then multiplied by 100,000. The rate of HIV/AIDS cases among ages 13-24 is used as the dependent variable. Data for chlamydia rates, teen birth rates, percent of single-parent households, and percent of children living in poverty was provided by the 2010 County Health Ranking Texas Data (Population Health Institute, 2011). Data for race/ethnicity populations, urban populations, median family income, and level of education was provided by the 2000 U.S. Census. These were used as explanatory variables with Spearman’s rank order correlation coefficient. Race/ethnicity data were defined as the percentage of each of the major race/ethnicity groups in each county. Level of education was defined as the percentage of the population with less than a high school graduate degree (high school dropout) among ages 18-24 and also the percentage of the population with a bachelor’s degree or higher among ages 18-24. Urban populations were defined as the percentage of the population that is urban. Measures of unsafe sex included chlamydia and teen birth rates by county. Chlamydia rates were defined as the rate per 100,000 and teen births were defined as the rate per 100,000 of the female population among ages 15-19. Socioeconomic factors included median family income in 1999 which was expressed in dollars, the percent of children living in poverty which was based on household income using the Gini coefficient of income inequality, and the percent of single-parent households which was defined as the percent of all households that are single-parent. VitalWeb ICD 9 Death data (Expert Health Data Programming, Inc., 2011) were used to gather the age-adjusted mortality rate of HIV/AIDS by county and map the change over time from 1980-1998. Excel Workbook was used to isolate the data, SPSS was used for statistical analysis, and the maps were created in ArcMap using ArcGIS software.