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This chapter examines the associations between gender, social support, and health outcomes for individuals living with HIV disease. We include social integration and social isolation as structural measures of social support as well as perceived social support and social conflict as functional measures of social support. We include both mental health and physical health outcomes, which are too often studied in isolation of each other.

Data are from the Coping with HIV/AIDS in the Southeast (CHASE) study; this study reports on baseline data from 611 participants collected from 2001 to 2002. We first examined differences by gender and race, and then used blocked linear regression to determine the additive effects of the social support variables on both mental and physical health outcomes while controlling for potential confounders.

There were notable differences in the significance and strength of social support variables in health outcome models for men and women. Unlike men, social conflict was the strongest predictor of greater psychological distress and poorer physical health-related quality of life among women.

While the results from this study contribute to a greater understanding of gender differences in the relationships between social support and health outcomes, the data used for this study are limited to those living with HIV/AIDS in the Southeast.

Our findings suggest that social conflict may be more detrimental for the health of women than men.

Purpose – This study investigates the sociodemographics, late entry to antiretroviral therapy (ART), and clinical markers associated with AIDS-related mortality.

Methodology/Approach – Applying retrospective cohort design, 960 medical records of people who died of AIDS, from October 2006 to December 2014, were accessed from the ART center at tertiary health care center of Ranchi (India).

Findings – With useable data from 889 medical records revealed that the majority of people who died of AIDS consisted of married males in the age group of 19–40 years who were truck drivers, migrant laborers, and of rural origins. The median survival period was below 3 months following the ART. Males and people on the pre-ART group had a shorter survival period than their counterparts. Early mortality was associated with lower CD4+ T cell counts, the third or fourth clinical stage, ambulatory or bed-ridden functional status, and poor medication adherence.

Research limitations/implications – This study was limited to the analysis of AIDS deceased people only; it did not compare the survival duration with living people on ART. The lower CD4+ T cell counts and medication adherence, being strong predictors of mortality, can be addressed to attain higher survival rates of people who have AIDS.

Originality/Value of Paper – This is the first study conducted in the tribal-populated region, covering a large sample of 889 cases. Unique findings of this study update the existing data on AIDS-related mortality.

No other region of the world has suffered from such devastating epidemics in the recent past than sub-Saharan Africa. HIV/AIDS poses the worst single health threat on the continent and approximately 28.5 million of people infected with HIV/AIDS are in sub-Saharan Africa, yet, less than 8% have access to treatment. As African countries start or continue to expand their HIV/AIDS treatment programs with the assistance of international donors, they are facing several ethical and health policy challenges, including difficult decisions on how to ration available treatment, the high cost of drugs, the complexity of treatment regimens, the inadequacy of health and delivery systems, the lack of knowledge about treatment, and the threat of drug resistance.

Sociologists have tended to construct theories of identity based on unitary notions of social location which avoid conceptualizing disjunction and contradiction and which therefore fail to capture certain characteristics of the postcolonial condition. This paper engages in a postcolonial re-reading of sociological theories of practice (in particular, Pierre Bourdieu's notion of habitus). It does so through an analysis of the historical development of the field of health and healing in South Africa. From the beginning of the colonial enterprise, biomedicine resisted amalgamation with other forms of healing and insisted on a monotherapeutic ideology and practice whereas indigenous healing accommodated not only biomedicine, but invited pluralism within and across cultural and ethnic differences. As such, a bifurcated and parallel system of healing emerged, whereby Black South Africans practiced pluralism and white South Africans utilized biomedicine in isolation. This disjuncture became acrimonious in the post-apartheid era as the state attempted to forge a united health system and battle the AIDS epidemic. Despite the historical and contemporary bifurcations within the field of health and healing, people living with AIDS continue to subscribe to a hybrid health ideology. There is, therefore, a structural disjuncture between the realities of consumption within the field of health and healing and the logic of the field as it is articulated in the symbolic struggle raging in the field of power. The field of health and healing is characterized, therefore, by a simultaneous bifurcation and hybridity – which is reflected in HIV-infected South Africans’ beliefs and practices. In order to make sense of this puzzling disjuncture and its impact on subjects’ trajectories of action, this paper draws insight from Pierre Bourdieu's theory of habitus and Homi Bhabha's conceptualization of hybridity – transforming each of them through their synthesis and application to the postcolonial context.

Women with HIV have increased longevity and the potential for decreasing mother to child transmission with the use of antiretroviral therapy. Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in 1980, the disease has evolved from an acute condition to a chronic one. How have women long-term survivors transitioned from a “death sentence” to living with HIV/AIDS as a chronic illness? In this study, we investigate the reproductive, mothering, and living experiences of HIV positive women 10 years after their participation in a study of their reproductive decisions. The sample was taken from two groups of women living with HIV (n = 60), one in Oakland, California (n = 30) and one in Rochester, New York (n = 30). Both groups participated in the initial study (1995–2001). The inclusion criteria for this study are women with HIV who are living and well enough to participate in a face-to-face interview. Of the original 60 women, 52 women are living. Two and one half years into this 4-year study, the author has completed interviews with 25 women from Oakland (n = 10) and Rochester (n = 15). An unexpected life with HIV challenges participants to live a viable life different from their pre-diagnosed life. It involves a life of defining normalcy in everyday experiences and building a legacy of a life worth living. Participants’ issues and concerns of living with HIV/AIDS identify what kinds of cultural notions, and medical and social interventions support or undermine women's reproductive, mothering, and long-term living with HIV/AIDS.

HIV and AIDS have had a significant impact on education and society in Botswana. By giving a background of HIV and AIDS in the country and outlining the main response activities in Botswana's education sector, the author provides a detailed foundation for understanding the phenomenon of HIV/AIDS in Botswana as well as the conditions and activities used to respond to this epidemic. The methodology primarily consisted of document analysis of government policies and other documentation as well as research reports of studies conducted on education and HIV and AIDS or related topics.

The change from using clinical endpoints to surrogate marker endpoints in antiretroviral (ARV) trials for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease, combined with the multiplicity of factors that may influence the effectiveness of ART in the community, requires the systematic integration of data through mathematical modeling in order for these data to be useful for most decision makers. Many issues must be considered in the construction of such models, but once constructed the models may be used to compare the expected value, epidemiological, and budget impacts of competing therapies and programs to help select the most cost effective approaches given local conditions.

This paper compares older drug users' exposure to HIV infection or to infecting others with the HIV virus to that of their younger counterparts and addresses the extent to which their personal networks, and the macro-networks within which they use drugs, play a role in risk exposure or prevention. We first consider the changing epidemiology of HIV with respect to older adults. Next we utilize two separate but related sets of data to determine if older drug users are at greater risk than their younger counterparts for drug and sex related HIV risk and also whether or not their knowledge base is sufficiently adequate to enable them to make appropriate decisions about HIV related risk avoidance. We then examine the role of social networks in enhancing or reducing risk of HIV infection in older and younger drug users. Finally we consider the position of both sero-positive and sero-negative older drug users in macro-networks of drug users and whether or not their positions increase or reduce their risk of exposure.