iReporters: Improve awareness to fight AIDS among blacks - CNN.com: (CNN) -- Since she was 12 years old, Suzanne Africa Engo has been working to raise AIDS awareness.
"Black women are an endangered species," she said in a phone interview.
AIDS is the leading cause of death among black women between 25 and 34, and the second-leading cause of death in black men from 35 to 44, according to a report released Tuesday.
The report , by the Black AIDS Institute, was compiled using just-released data from UNAIDS and research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Census Bureau.
"For a lot of young black women, what's putting them at risk is emotion," the 29-year-old iReporter said. "Young women are going to men for security -- you're talking about a fatherless home and a girl looking for approval. That's the kind of thing that puts them at risk."
Engo plans to run from New York to Chicago in September to promote the New York AIDS Film Festival, which she organizes each year. She expects the run to take two months.
Poor health care also contributes to the AIDS epidemic in the black community, she said.
"People are not financially in a place to deal with the news" of being HIV positive, she said. "You're also talking about people with other things that put your immune system at risk, like weaker health in general."
