Just when we thought it may have been heart disease, or obesity, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health announced that the leading cause of death for Black women in Massachusetts is HIV/AIDS.

Women account for more than 1 in 4 of all new HIV/AIDS cases in the state, according to the public health department, reports a local Boston news channel.  More than half of the cases are African-American women.

Additionally, Black women are thirty-eight times more likely than white women to contract the disease.

"Really a lot of women, African-American women, don't really know what their partners are doing or their partners are keeping certain aspects of their life shielded from their female partners," Dr. Bela Bashar, a clinical director of HIV services tells the station.

According to the study, the leading cause of infection among white women was injection drug use. 

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