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Older adults’ sexual health is becoming an increasingly important component of healthy aging in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and rising infection rates among this age cohort. The increase in HIV/AIDS diagnoses in the older adult population ignites the need to understand the reasons why older adults are omitted from HIV/AIDS prevention education policy.

This chapter examines the social forces that influence HIV/AIDS policy at the state and community levels. Through qualitative methodology and analysis, including interviews with state policymakers and managers of AIDS service organizations in four Midwestern states (n=31), I look for trends and patterns as to whether or not older adults are considered as an “at-risk” group for HIV infection.

Findings reveal that HIV/AIDS policy may be impacted by enduring sexual scripts about older adults. To some extent both state policymakers and AIDS service organization personnel adhere to stereotypes about older adults’ sexuality and sexual activity, which is then implemented in their health promotion activities. The result is that gaps exist in HIV/AIDS prevention education for older adults, despite the fact that current trends show an increase in new HIV infections and AIDS diagnoses among people over the age of 50.

While this is an exploratory study of the available HIV/AIDS prevention education and health promotion activities for older adults, as well as the viewpoints of state policymakers and AIDS service organization personnel, the findings do indicate the need for additional research on the potentially dangerous sexual behaviors – lack of HIV testing, low condom usage, multiple partners – exhibited by older adults. Future research involving interviews with older adults, physicians, and medical personnel may add new perspectives to the current research.

As the baby boomers continue to age and challenge cultural stereotypes of sexual behaviors among older adults, research in the area of sexual health and HIV/AIDS prevention education will remain an important component of healthy aging. This research begins what will ultimately be a necessary conversation.

This study sought to investigate a framework for ensuring the confidentiality and security of information at the public health-care facilities to curb HIV/AIDS trauma among patients in Africa. In most instances, trauma to HIV/AIDS patients accelerate because of their personal information relating to the state of illness leaks to public people.

This qualitative study used literature to study confidentiality and security of information at the public health-care facilities to curb HIV/AIDS trauma among patients in Africa.

The study revealed that confidentiality and security of information has been neglected, in most instances, at the health-care facilities, and this has, to some extent, affected HIV/AIDS patients negatively, leading to trauma, stigma and skipping of treatment by patients resulting in accelerated mortality among chronic patients. The study recommends that patients’ information be always strictly controlled and kept confidential and secured at all the times, especially that of HIV/AIDS patients.

The proposed framework can be used by health-care facilities to guide the management and promotion of the confidentiality and security of information in the public health-care facilities to curb additional trauma to HIV/AIDS patients in the context of Africa, and even beyond.

The study provides a framework to ensure the confidentiality and security of information at the public health-care facilities to curb additional trauma to HIV/AIDS patients.

This paper aims to describe the personal information and help networks of people with HIV/AIDS (PHAs) in rural Canada, and to present a research‐based model of how and why these networks developed. This model seeks to consider the roles of PHAs, their family members/friends and formal health systems in network formation.

In‐depth, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 114 PHAs, their friends/family members (FFs) and formal caregivers in three rural regions of Canada. A network solicitation procedure elicited PHAs' HIV/AIDS information/help networks. Interviews were analyzed qualitatively, and network data were analyzed statistically. Documents describing health systems in each region were also analyzed. Analyses used social capital theory, supplemented by stress/coping and stigma management theories.

PHAs' HIV/AIDS‐related information/help networks emphasized linking and bonding social capital with minimal bridging social capital. This paper presents a model that explains how and why such networks developed. The model shows that networks grew from the actions of PHAs, their FFs and health systems. PHAs experienced considerable stress, which led them to develop information/help networks to cope with HIV/AIDS – both individually and collaboratively. Because of stigmatization, many PHAs disclosed their illness selectively, thus constraining the size and composition of their networks. Health system actors created network‐building opportunities for PHAs by providing them with care, referrals and support programs.

This study describes and explains an understudied type of information behavior: information/help network development at individual, group and institutional levels. As such, it illuminates the complex dynamics that made individual acts of interpersonal information acquisition and sharing possible.

The purpose of the study was to analyse approaches to HIV/AIDS education adopted by the Zambian Ministry of Education (MoE), using a holistic approach and focusing on the Zambian culture. This chapter reports on an explorative qualitative study involving focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with Ministry of Education and Health officials, pupils, students, and members of the community. Qualitative analysis was applied and themes from ecological theory were used to organise and discuss data. At the macro level, there was inadequate implementation of HIV/AIDS education in schools, very few handbooks, textbooks and learners’ reading materials, and no discussion of the Zambian cultural (sexual) practices in relation to HIV/AIDS education. Inadequate laws and policies on HIV/AIDS prevention, poverty, unemployment, lack of job creation, and lack of social security were blamed for the lack of positive sexual behaviour changes. Communities had strong theological and metaphysical beliefs including witchcraft and sex with a widow, a menstruating woman or a woman who had an abortion as possible causes of HIV and incurable diseases being a curse from God. At the individual level, the knowledge of HIV/AIDS was high with radio and television being sources of information. Respondents viewed sexual cultures in communities not to have significantly changed. A majority of respondents did not use condoms; most adults continued having multiple sexual partners and women were submissive in marriages. This chapter is useful to policy makers, teachers, pupils/students, and the community, and in understanding interactions and influences of cultures on HIV/AIDS education and government's role in creating an enabling environment to sustain desirable changes.

The incipient HIV/AIDS epidemic in Chile poses challenges for responsiveness of the Chilean national health care system, Fondo Nacional de Salud (FONASA) (National Health Funds), especially given the sociocultural forces for inertia in FONASA. Thus, the issue is what is the nature of the forces for change. A grounded theory approach was applied to interview data from two qualitative studies, one with HIV/AIDS advocates and activists as interviewees and the other with Chilean low-income women. The stories of their experiences with and perceptions of FONASA revealed major issues facing FONASA, including quality of care and ethics. Ways in which these issues are being addressed by the activists result in constructed environmental dynamism. A conceptual model of the forces for change was developed including actors, strategies, and targets of change that constitutes organizational environmental dynamism. The construct of environmental dynamism has international applicability, particularly to governmental health systems, which are influenced by strong sociocultural forces.

In this study, the aim is to put emphasis on a specific discrimination area that is evaluated both as a disability and a diversity dimension. Human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) disease should be considered beyond the scope of health as a social issue. However, the main purpose of the study is to determine the influence of information levels on HIV/AIDS on attitudes and views towards people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) in work life. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to assess this influence by means of a pilot study. Additionally, one of the basic assumptions of the study is that career and identity developments of PLHIV will be positive as a result of the increase in knowledge amongst human resource (HR) managers and career counselors about HIV and PLHIV.

Disinformation about HIV/AIDS may cause stigmatization and discrimination. Thus, this paper seeks to indicate the effects and results of the discrimination and tries to create awareness. Consequently, discrimination against PLHIV in work life is emphasized in the study in parallel with the information levels related to the disease. Additionally, survey technique is used on the sample of HR employees and managers who are members of The Association of HR Managers (PERYON).

The paper finds that 50 percent of the respondents stated that it was right to request a HIV test whereas 36 percent of them declared that it was not right. The respondents' information level about the transmission of HIV was evaluated as medium or high. Respondents mostly think that HIV is not a punishment to people for their misbehaviors, and that sufferers should not be ashamed of themselves; PLHIV are not guilty and do not have marginal life styles. They also showed sensitivity towards the right for treatment and protection of the human rights of PLHIV. The majority of respondents stated that they could work in the same workplace with PLHIV and also that they did not associate HIV with homosexuals.

As a limitation, there is a possibility that social desirability had an effect on some of the respondents' answers. Second, the respondents have never met PLHIV in their workplaces. Because of these limitations it was not possible to get answers regarding discriminative behaviors in the workplace towards PLHIV in terms of HR functions. Thus, it is suggested that a study on PLHIV or people who work with PLHIV should be conducted. Additionally, the study could be replicated with different and larger samples.

A contribution to increasing awareness and the cautions against discrimination towards HIV/AIDS is one of the values of this study. Another distinctive characteristic of this study is the investigation of this issue from the context of an emerging country, Turkey.

Reports on a US survey of state police (and highway patrol) training academies concerning policies for dealing with AIDS. Finds that although a majority of these organizations have implemented training, fewer agencies have adopted policies informing officers how to deal with HIV/AIDS sufferers, despite the existence of national standards and model policies. Finds that even fewer agencies have policies addressing the employment of staff with HIV/AIDS.

Impact mitigation strategies in sub-Saharan Africa on HIV/AIDS in the education sector involved initially the development of education sector policies. This study traces the policy development initiatives, level of implementation, progress made and existing challenges. The study is based on a close (textual) reading of authoritative literature from United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), World Bank, UNESCO and UNICEF for the last decade on global monitoring of HIV/AIDS and statistical data. Studies on the impact of HIV/AIDS on the education sector in sub-Saharan Africa have been brought into focus and themes have been extracted and synthesised from a comparative perspective to guide the development of this chapter. Across the countries, the education sector HIV/AIDS policies had concurrence with the countries’ national HIV and AIDS policy or guidelines, and conformed to international conventions, national laws, policies, guidelines and regulations. Most of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa showed a significant decline in HIV prevalence among young women or men and opportunities to improve HIV-prevention knowledge and behaviour still abound. Antiretroviral therapy and other types of treatment have expanded since the early 2000s, but the number of AIDS-related deaths remains high. This chapter fulfils an identified information/resources need and amplifies the progress achieved in the mitigation of the impact of HIV/AIDS on the education sector specifically and humanity in general.

By bringing together aspects of sustainable forest management, population health, and local livelihoods, the purpose of this study was to characterize how household dependence on forest resources changes through three phases: the period before HIV became a problem in the household, the period during HIV-related morbidity, and after AIDS-related mortality.

Sixty semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of unaffected and HIV/AIDS-affected households in four case study districts in Malawi.

This study demonstrates that the relationship between HIV/AIDS and dependence on specific forest resources appears to correspond closely with the stage of the disease. Firewood and water were consistently ranked as being one of the three most important resources, regardless of HIV-affectedness. During the morbidity phase, respondents reported their need for medicinal plants increased substantially, along with other resources. The importance of timber increased significantly after HIV-related mortality.

Interview respondents themselves suggested key interventions that would assist households in the HIV/AIDS-mortality phase, in particular, to obtain the forest resources they require. These interventions could address the impacts of HIV/AIDS on the sustainability of important resources, compensate for a decreased availability of household labor, and foster greater access to these resources for vulnerable households in the four study sites.

In spite of the fact that forest resources can play a crucial role in enabling a household to control and adapt to the disease, research on the environmental dimensions of HIV/AIDS remains limited. This chapter helps to address this knowledge gap, suggests practical, innovative interventions that could alleviate some of the disease burden on rural Malawian households, and offers insight into potential areas of further inquiry in this research domain.

This paper makes the case for, and describes an effort to develop and promote the use of, model law to address HIV/AIDS in prisons. First, it outlines the concept of model law and what model law can bring to advocacy around law reform. Second, it describes why model law is particularly important to safeguard the rights of prisoners and people who use drugs. Third, it relates the methodology involved in developing model law. Three important areas of prison law and regulation related to HIV/AIDS are then described: provisions on the likelihood and duration of incarceration, including periods in pretrial detention; the legal foundation for HIV/AIDS care in prison; and the legal framework for comprehensive harm reduction services in prisons. A legislative framework to address rape and sexual violence in prison is also outlined. The paper sets out broad principles of how prison laws and regulations should be reformed to accord with human rights principles, and provides a number of examples of the specific wording of certain provisions.