The AIDS epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa continues to affect all facets of life throughout the subcontinent. Deaths related to AIDS have driven down the life expectancy rate of residents in Zambia, Kenya, and Uganda with far-reaching implications. This book details the current state of the AIDS epidemic in Africa and what is known about the behaviors that contribute to the transmission of the HIV infection. It lays out what research is needed and what is necessary to design more effective prevention programs.
"Despite global progress in understanding the epidemiology of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), knowledge about the epidemic in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains limited and subject to much controversy. In the more than 25 years since the discovery of HIV, no scientific study has provided a comprehensive, data-driven synthesis of the spread of HIV/AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) in the region. Consequently, the effectiveness of policies, programs, and resources intended to address the spread of HIV/AIDS has been compromised. This report aims to fill the knowledge gap by providing the first-ever comprehensive scientific assessment and data-driven epidemiological synthesis of HIV's spread in MENA. It is based on a literature review and analysis of thousands of largely unrecognized publications, reports, and data sources extracted from scientific literature or collected from sources at the local, national, and regional levels. The resulting collection of data provides a solid foundation on which efforts to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS can be based. 'Characterizing the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the Middle East and North Africa' will be of particular interest to policy makers, researchers, development practitioners, and specialists in public health and epidemiology."
Europe's "Black Death" contributed to the rise of nation states, mercantile economies, and even the Reformation. Will the AIDS epidemic have similar dramatic effects on the social and political landscape of the twenty-first century? This readable volume looks at the impact of AIDS since its emergence and suggests its effects in the next decade, when a million or more Americans will likely die of the disease. The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States addresses some of the most sensitive and controversial issues in the public debate over AIDS. This landmark book explores how AIDS has affected fundamental policies and practices in our major institutions, examining: How America's major religious organizations have dealt with sometimes conflicting values: the imperative of care for the sick versus traditional views of homosexuality and drug use. Hotly debated public health measures, such as HIV antibody testing and screening, tracing of sexual contacts, and quarantine. The potential risk of HIV infection to and from health care workers. How AIDS activists have brought about major change in the way new drugs are brought to the marketplace. The impact of AIDS on community-based organizations, from volunteers caring for individuals to the highly political ACT-UP organization. Coping with HIV infection in prisons. Two case studies shed light on HIV and the family relationship. One reports on some efforts to gain legal recognition for nonmarital relationships, and the other examines foster care programs for newborns with the HIV virus. A case study of New York City details how selected institutions interact to give what may be a picture of AIDS in the future. This clear and comprehensive presentation will be of interest to anyone concerned about AIDS and its impact on the country: health professionals, sociologists, psychologists, advocates for at-risk populations, and interested individuals.
Today, around the world, there are 5 million young men and women living with HIV. Opportunity in Crisis: Preventing HIV from early adolescence to young adulthood examines the state of the HIV epidemic among young people, highlighting the challenges they face and presenting solutions informed by evidence of what works with different age groups and in different epidemic settings. The report outlines key steps towards building a continuum of HIV prevention that can help keep children HIV-free as they develop into young adults.
With insightful discussion of program evaluation and the efforts of the Centers for Disease Control, this book presents a set of clear-cut recommendations to help ensure that the substantial resources devoted to the fight against AIDS will be used most effectively. This expanded edition of Evaluating AIDS Prevention Programs covers evaluation strategies and outcome measurements, including a realistic review of the factors that make evaluation of AIDS programs particularly difficult. Randomized field experiments are examined, focusing on the use of alternative treatments rather than placebo controls. The book also reviews nonexperimental techniques, including a critical examination of evaluation methods that are observational rather than experimentalâ€"a necessity when randomized experiments are infeasible.
HIV-related stigma and discrimination and human rights violations constitute great barriers to preventing HIV infection; providing care, support and treatment; and alleviating the impacts of the epidemic. This publication documents case studies of successful action in different countries addressing HIV-related human rights violations, stigma and discrimination.
Public health has a legacy of neglect regarding social and behavioral research. Too often, prompted by technical and scientific progress, we have ignored even marginalized-the vital "human element" in health thinking and prac tice. Thus, for example, while family planning programs focused on providing a choice among safe and effective contraceptive methods (a supremely worthy goal), the central issue of sexuality and sexual behavior was generally neglected. Similarly, the enormous and important efforts to develop rapid and reliable diagnostic and treatment methods for sexually transmitted diseases helped divert attention away from the crucial issues of sexual practice. In short, we seem to have difficulty addressing the fundamental behaviors-including sex, drug taking and other intoxications, and violence-that are central to the major causes of preventable morbidity, disability, and premature mortality in the world today. Our collective reluctance to examine and understand ourselves is also expressed in the oft-repeated pipedream that scientific progress will "take care of" the HIV / AIDS pandemic by delivering a preventive vaccine, an effective cure, or both. Yet even a cursory glance at the relationship between scientific/ technical progress and health shows that meeting the scientific challenges is only one step toward effective application of the vaccine or drug. It is typical, not atypical, that hepatitis B vaccine is only now becoming relatively freely available to large populations in the developing world, more than a decade after the vaccine's licensure.