THIS GENDER GAP, experts say, may lead black women to make unsafe sexual decisions and raise their risk of infection.

"Large numbers of black men are in prison, or unemployed, or dead, so there is simply a smaller pool of available partners to choose from," said Dr. Gail E. Wyatt, a psychiatry professor and an associate director of the University of California, Los Angeles, AIDS Institute. "So while women are quite concerned about being infected with H.I.V., the threat of death is not enough to persuade black women to protect themselves if it means being alone, childless and with less income."

Though women outnumber men in the general population, the gap is wider among blacks. According to 2002 census data, there are 12.6 million black women 21 or older, compared with 9.9 million black men. On college campuses, the numbers are particularly lopsided: in 2000, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than one million black women were enrolled in degree-granting institutions, compared with 635,000 black men.

"Many of the women on campus are panic-stricken because of the feeling of scarcity," said Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, professor of women's studies and English at Spelman College in Atlanta. "This shortage of desirable partners creates a sense of desperation. I see a lot of problematic sexual decision-making among black women across class and age lines."
NYT