The Office of National AIDS Policy reports that 50% of all new HIV infections occur in 13-24 year-olds. Latino teens (ages 13-19) represent only 15% of US teenagers, but they account for 21% of the new Aids cases reported for that age group in 2001, according to the CDC.  

A study conducted by the US Jobs Corps found that Latino males (ages 16-21) are two times more likely to be infected with HIV than their white counterparts. Only 33% of Latinas reported ever talking to a health provider about HIV/AIDS. Even fewer had specifically discussed the risk of being infected with the disease (23%) or getting tested (22%) for HIV with any provider during their lifetime. According to the Hispanic Federation, Latino teens continue to have the lowest rate of condom use (48%) as compared to blacks (64%) and whites (56%).

• 65% of teens are sexually active by 12 th grade - 20% of them have had four or more partners (Office of National AIDS Policy)
• 26% of sexually active teenagers think it's impossible to get HIV through oral sex, and 15% don't know whether people can contract HIV this way (www.amFAR.org)
• 25% of sex education teachers are not permitted to discuss contraception. However, 82% of sex education teachers surveyed believe they should be demonstrating the correct way to use a condom. (Alan Guttmacher Institute)

Many young Latinos are not being educated about behaviors that may put them in danger of infection. The two most common ways in which teens are infected with HIV are through injection drug use or through sex with a HIV infected partner.In many cases, parents do not want to discuss their children's sexual practices, choosing to believe they are not sexually active. "De eso no se habla." (We don't talk about those things.)

Unfortunately, findings from a study done in 1998 showed that Latino teens who talked with their mothers about condoms before their first sexual intercourse were three times more likely to use condoms than those teens who did not talk to their mothers. Furthermore, condom use at the first intercourse was associated with a 20-fold increase in lifetime condom usage.

According to the findings of the National Survey of Teens on HIV/AIDS released in a report by the Kaiser Family foundation (2000):

• 68% of the Latino teens reported that they are interested in getting more information about how to protect themselves from becoming infected with HIV/AIDS
• 66% are interested in knowing where to get tested for HIV/AIDS
• 43% want to know about the proper way to use condoms
• 51% want to know how to talk to their partners about HIV/AIDS
• 56% of the teens reported learning "a lot" or "some" information about HIV/AIDS from books and pamphlets, while 64% reported learning "a lot" or "some" information about the disease from their parents.