This book tells the story of the HIV epidemic in South Africa, and asks why, after more than three decades, it has not normalised. Despite considerable efforts to prevent infection, and ambitious targets set to end the epidemic by 2030, HIV infections are increasing among young women and treatment uptake and adherence have been uneven. Focusing on the years preceding and following treatment access, this book addresses why an end to AIDS may be misplaced optimism. By examining public discourses and private narratives about infection, illness and death, this work reveals the contradictions between the lived experiences of AIDS suffering on the one hand, and biomedical certainties on the other. Based on long-term ethnographic research in rural villages of the South African lowveld, and within HIV prevention interventions in South Africa more generally, this book offers an intimate perspective on the social and cultural responses to the epidemic.

A witch's curse, an imperialist conspiracy, a racist plot-HIV/AIDS is a catastrophic health crisis with complex cultural dimensions. From small villages to the international system, explanations of where it comes from, who gets it, and who dies are tied to political agendas, religious beliefs, and the psychology of devastating grief. Frequently these explanations conflict with science and clash with prevention and treatment programs. In Witches, Westerners, and HIV Alexander Roedlach draws on a decade of research and work in Zimbabwe to compare beliefs about witchcraft and conspiracy theories surrounding HIV/AIDS in Africa. He shows how both types of beliefs are part of a process of blaming others for AIDS, a process that occurs around the globe but takes on local, culturally specific forms. He also demonstrates the impact of these beliefs on public health and advocacy programs, arguing that cultural misunderstandings contribute to the failure of many well-intentioned efforts. This insightful book provides a cultural perspective essential for everyone interested in AIDS and cross-cultural health issues.

The AIDS epidemic continues to grow in this country and around the world. Currently, the only hope of stopping this tragedy is through interventions that change individual behavior. This book provides an excellent overview of current knowledge and research on how to promote the behaviors of safer sex and safer drug use, which will slow down the spread of HIV. It will be a useful resource for researchers who examine HIV prevention and for community workers and clinicians who wish to use sound, well-tested techniques for their intervention work. In addition, the book can serve as a thorough introduction for students who are new to the area of behavioral research on HIV and AIDS. --from the Overview by Suzanne C. Thompson & Stuart Oskamp Bringing together some of the most active and respected researchers in the field, this volume presents a state-of-the-art, integrated examination of behavioral research aimed at reducing the transmission of HIV. In almost 20 years of battling the AIDS epidemic, one theme has consistently emerged: The solution to stopping the spread of the AIDS virus rests with individual behavior. Understanding and Preventing HIV Risk Behavior grapples with the critical question of how to influence people to change high-risk behaviors, particularly in sexual activity and drug use. The contributors take an in-depth look at the most current HIV and AIDS epidemiological findings; the information-motivation-behavioral skills model of risk behavior; and empirical analyses of contraceptive decision making, denial processes, and the role of attraction in heterosexual behavior. This timely volume also examines research with special populations, including African American youths, Latinos, both gay and straight residents of HIV-impacted communities, active drug users, and adolescents in countries that have different AIDS risk levels and public health policies. Representing the latest in research on safer sex and altering drug use behaviors, Understanding and Preventing HIV Risk Behavior will be a valuable resource for HIV-prevention researchers, community workers, and clinicians who want to utilize research findings in their HIV intervention programs. This volume will also benefit students seeking an up-to-date overview of research on HIV/AIDS risk behavior.

In the five years since the publication of the first edition, there have been significant changes in clinical HIV care. The growth of aids in the developing world is continuing at an alarming rate, the introduction of highly-active antiretroviral therapy has presented new complications, and the increased longevity of HIV-infected patients has changed the issues involved in long-term HIV care. The second edition has been completely revised with new clinical information, drug interactions, antiretroviral therapy, and more. The succinct explanations combined with the copious illustrations make this the essential tool for the care and management of HIV patients.

Contents:
List of Tables and Illustrations Glossary Acknowledgments Preface 1. The Sociology of Knowledge on HIV and AIDS 2. The Medicalization of Gay Desire in San Francisco (1974-1983) 3. The Early Demographics of AIDS:
Case Studies of The First Nine Gay Male AIDS Cases in San Francisco 4. More Gay Men Reported With AIDS in San Francisco: 15 Case Studies from 1981 5. The Mechanics of AIDS Surveillance: An Historical Critique of The Demography of Risk 6. AIDS Surveillance Statistics: Changing The Subjects and Object of Study 7. Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index

As the AIDS crisis reaches new heights globally with no cure in the immediate future, the time is ripe to step back and examine the roots of this epidemic. In When AIDS Began, Michelle Cochrane constructs the making of this disease and dispels many of the misconceptions that surround it. By examining the early outbreaks in San Francisco, Cochrane unfolds the "creation" of AIDS in one geographic location and then traces how and why major claims about the transmission of HIV were made, extrapolated and then disseminated to the rest of the world - all important factors in understanding this disease.

The revelation of being HIV positive continues to be a discourse fraught with meaning. In Infecting the Treatment: Being an HIV-Positive Analyst, Gilbert Cole offers an intimate and deeply insightful examination of disclosure of his HIV seropositivity on his analytic sense of self and on his clinical work with patients.
Cole begins his journey of discovery by meditating on the meanings that being HIV positive have had for him, and by situating these personal meanings within the multiple meanings of HIV seropositivity generated by our culture, leading to a clinical discussion of the pros and cons of disclosure to one's patients. What begins as a consideration of disclosure of an ostensibly medical fact, opens to an exploration of the broader problematic of disclosure in the context of questions of sameness and difference, of dependence and autonomy, and of the ethical ground of psychoanalytic practice. He illuminates these issues by circling back to his own predicament, which took the form of an apparent conflict between his self-image as a psychoanalytic therapist committed to a psychoanalytic treatment approach and aspects of his self-experience that seemed uncomfortably dissonant with this identity and this commitment. He approached resolution of this conflict when he became able to use his HIV seropositivity as a metaphor for aspects of the treatment process.

Comprising Cole's personal engagement of the issues inherent in being an HIV-positive analyst, his report of clinical work attendant to disclosure of his condition, and a research project compiling the experiences of other HIV-positive analysts, Infecting the Treatment is an intimate and deeply insightful examination of the impact of one analyst's disclosure of HIV seropositivity on his analytic sense of self. With admirable candor and uncommon thoughtfulness, Cole shows how the analyst's disclosure of information of the most meaningful sort may deepen and even transform the therapeutic dialogue.

Explore the controversial subject of cannabis therapeutics for HIV/AIDS patients!Cannabis Therapeutics in HIV/AIDS provides a scientific view of the benefits of marijuana in helping to increase appetite, ease the symptoms of HIV/AIDS, and improve quality of life for patients. Dr. Ethan Russo, editor of the Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics, has assembled a collection of first-rate information from clinicians, researchers, and patients. Based on scientific research, this book offers insights into how using cannabis has helped patients deal with the symptoms of HIV/AIDS. This informative book contains: a broad medical overview of the pertinent topics of interest with respect toAIDS and its treatment an insider's view on the twenty-year history of the discovery of AIDS and its junction with cannabis and the medical marijuana political movement survey studies of clinical cannabis usage from different populations in California a state-of-the-artreview of immunological issues in cannabis usage and pulmonary issues with smoked cannabis data on the method of cannabis vaporization information on standardized sublingual whole-cannabis extracts, rectal suppositories, and aerosol preparations

The availability of combination antiretroviral therapy has changed the lives of millions of people living with HIV (PLWH), for whom a once fatal infection can now be a manageable chronic disease. Yet only 30 percent of PLWH in the United States are virally suppressed, and significant gaps in access to care persist. While programs to boost linkage to and retention in HIV care are critical to improving the health of PLWH, efforts to evaluate these programs are surprisingly scarce. Using cutting-edge implementation science, this book tackles the issue of how to better link and retain PLWH in ongoing primary medical care. A multipart case study examines successful strategies and provides detailed profiles of the organizations involved and their processes for reaching, linking, and retaining PLWH. Barriers to and facilitators of implementation are explored qualitatively, network analysis is used to assess changes in interagency collaboration among organizations serving PLWH, and evidence-based recommendations are offered for improving linkage to HIV care in the US.

Among the chief themes of this book are the representation of AIDS in the mass media and in the arts, and the encouragement of a wider understanding of the personal impact of AIDS and its social experience, particularly among those social groups living with the highest levels of illness, death and mourning.

Addressing contemporary issues faced by individuals with HIV/AIDS, AIDS and Mental Health Practice: Clinical and Policy Issues provides psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and counselors with research and case studies that offers models for effective clinical practice at this stage of the epidemic. Each chapter is written by experts in the field and demonstrates ways to provide better services to different populations, many of whom are ignored in AIDS and mental health literature. As a result, this book will provide professionals in the field and students in training with the most current practice information about mental health practice and HIV/AIDS. AIDS and Mental Health Practice will help you understand the diverse needs of people with HIV/AIDS and organize services to assist these populations. AIDS and Mental Health Practice discusses issues that affect several different groups in order to help you understand the unique situations of your clients. You will learn how to design treatments that will be most beneficial to Latinos, intravenous drug users, orphaned children, African Americans, HIV-negative gay men, HIV nonprogressors, HIV-positive transsexuals, end-stage AIDS clients, couples of mixed HIV status, and individuals suffering from HIV-associated Cognitive Motor Disorder. This book provides you with approaches that will improve services for these populations, including: talking to patients about the positive and negative aspects of taking protease inhibitors and discussing their feelings of hope, skepticism, and fear of being disappointed by the treatment preparing clients to go back to work by exploring the meaning of work and referring them to vocational services if necessary providing support groups for people living with AIDS (PLWAs), their loved ones, their families, and individuals in bereavement as a result of an AIDS-related death organizing a HIV-negative gay men's support group that uses exercises and homework to focus on the members'ambivalent connection to the AIDS community, how they remain HIV negative, and ways to deal with separation and grief issues assessing and/or correcting underlying racism in AIDS service organizationsThe prevention and intervention strategies in Mental Health and AIDS Practice will help you address and treat mental health issues associated with HIV/AIDS and offer clients more effective and relevant services.

In this single volume, William N. Elwood has gathered potent evidence of the impact that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has had on the world, its communities, and its inhabitants, and he addresses the role of communication in affecting the way in which people respond to AIDS. With a multidisciplinary group of contributors and topics ranging from political rhetoric to interpersonal discourse, "Power in the Blood" offers a multitude of ways in which to think about power, politics, HIV prevention, and people living with HIV. Readers will be able to use this information in class discussions, program designs, grant applications, and research, as well as in their own lives. With this volume, Elwood makes a thoroughly convincing argument that communication is the key to understanding, treating, and preventing AIDS, and he inspires further action toward the goal of ending the AIDS crisis.

Love and Anger: Essays on AIDS, Activism, and Politics is one of the first books to take an interdisciplinary approach to AIDS activism and politics by looking at the literary response to the disease, class issues, and the AIDS activist group ACT UP. Containing both literary analysis and interviews with activists, Love and Anger will help you understand the unique struggle of a certain class of gay men, why the author challenges the belief that ACT UP is a radical group, and why the love story is a central part of the literary response to AIDS. Examining ACT UP in relation to class issues, Love and Anger discusses how, for certain middle-to upper-middle-class men in the group, ACT UP represented a political response not to fundamental social inequalities, but to the fact that their class position could not benefit them in the absence of an AIDS cure. In addition, you will gain insight into the political methods and goals of ACT UP through interviews with ACT UP members, and find out why the group is sometimes misperceived as being radical, "too gay, " or "not gay enough." Different from many other recent works, Love and Anger also combines literary analysis with fieldwork in order to examine the literary response to AIDS from historical and sociological contexts, not just a literary context. Drawing on the fields of anthropology, sociology, political science, history, and literary studies, this text provides you with an original interpretation of a number of novels and plays, including: Afterlife, a novel by Paul Monette, and The Normal Heart, a play by Larry Kramer, both of which envision the return of the class privileges that certain gay men had before AIDS emerged People in Trouble, a novel by Sarah Schulman, which challenges gay men to stop striving for the privileges of straight males and instead to focus on an AIDS movement that will support all groups affected by the epidemic Angels in America, a play by Tony Kushner, which demonstrates the incompatibility of love and political struggle in literature about AIDSBy examining AIDS activism and politics through the love story and through real-life examples such as ACT UP, Love and Anger integrates fact and fiction in a scholarly, yet comprehensible manner. It will give you a clearer understanding of the issues surrounding AIDS activism and politics, as well as give you insight into the attitudes and feelings of those affected by the disease.

For many women, the advice "Use a condom " is not enough to help protect them from HIV infection. As Women and AIDS reveals, "negotiating" safer sex practices is a very complex issue for women who are involved in relationships where they do not enjoy physical, social, or economic equality. The book s authors maintain that the key to curbing the spread of HIV and to caring for those already infected--is communication. Women and AIDS is the first volume to address HIV/AIDS and women from a communication perspective.This helpful guidebook addresses how women might achieve safer sexual and drug injection practices with partners, but it also explores women s negotiation of the health care system as patients, medical research subjects, and caregivers. It challenges traditional assumptions about the relationship between care providers and patients and the meaning of patient compliance and raises important questions about gender, race, and class that are exacerbated by the epidemic. Designed to ground interventions in the realities of women s lives, Women and AIDS discusses what women can do to get around communication and health care obstacles. To this end, you will learn about: using the media for HIV-related social action and to promote women s views of HIV and sexuality prison health care for HIV-positive women cultural constructions of sex and drug sharing in a variety of communities long-term changes that will empower women delivering an HIV-positive diagnosis to patients gender roles and caregiving the language we use to talk about "Third World" women and "Asian AIDS" women AIDS filmmakers/videographersFor the benefit of AIDS activists, health care providers, and counselors, Women and AIDS discusses women and their communication and awareness from virtually every angle. This book analyzes situations where communication breaks down--from the woman who can t openly discuss safe sex with her partner, to the drunk college student who "hooks up," to the doctor who gives an HIV-positive diagnosis without compassion--and offers communication solutions. This will help women avoid such risks, establish communication and safety in their lives, and construct meaningful roles in relationship to HIV/AIDS.

In this enlightening book, you ll explore the life struggles and adaptations leading up to and following HIV infection in young Americans. The cases presented in Youths Living with HIV envisage a variety of experiences of youths living with HIV and AIDS, including individuals of different races, of each gender, and of different sexual preferences. This discussion of the private "troubles" and experiences of youths helps you understand and identify dependent and larger public issues surrounding HIV infection and AIDS, and demonstrates the need for comprehensive and targeted intervention and preventive measures.This book is the result of the first federally funded multi-site study to research, develop, and provide HIV education and prevention specifically to young Americans. Detailed narrative descriptions were collected by ethnographers of the Joven Project, which started in October 1992, and explored and documented the lives of youths living with HIV and AIDS over a two-year period. This ethnographic exploratory study was one component of a larger National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) supported Secondary AIDS Education and Prevention Program. Youths Living with HIV reconstructs the past and present struggles that young people living with HIV and AIDS face(d), employing qualitative field interviews. Larger and interrelated developmental, social, cultural, and political factors are also illustrated and discussed. As you read through the chapters, you ll gain insight into: youth development--coming of age, sexual development, and risk-taking behaviors gay development and activity--coming out, establishing relationships, and power-imbalanced/cross-generational relationships self-harmful behaviors--drug use, sex, and poverty notification and reaction to infection impression management and disclosure of infection status adaptation to HIV status and necessary life changes sexual activity and relationships after infection social worlds and support networks/pathological or destructive networks availability and success of existing AIDS-related services future orientation and life expectations Whether you re a counselor, teacher, policymaker, physician, mental health professional, social worker, or advocate who specializes in or focus on youth development, gay youths, field methodology (qualitative research), public health, women s health, drug use, sex work, and/or AIDS, you will find Youths Living with HIV essential to understanding and helping this affected population.

In this important book, editor Michael Ross brings together the latest knowledge and research concerning the relationship between HIV and AIDS and sexual functioning. HIV/AIDS and Sexuality explores the experiences of being HIV-infected and the impact of infection on an individual's sexuality. It describes differences that may be associated with individuals who are infected or concerned about infection, and it provides new in-depth analyses of the effect of HIV on sexuality and sexual risks. The book provides clinical perspectives on sexual problems associated with HIV infection as well as some treatment approaches. Contributing authors represent the United States, Australia, and Europe and discuss heterosexual men and women, gay men, lesbians, and injecting drug users. This diversity provides a more complete picture of the experiences of people with HIV in terms of explicit and implicit sexuality. Chapters include cross-sectional and cohort study designs as well as qualitative, quantitative, and clinical approaches. Some of the topics explored are: the centrality of sexuality to equality of life and identity and the impact of HIV on sexuality in gay-identified men the psychological impact of making changes in sexual behavior on gay men with HIV infection risk behaviors in seropositive and seronegative women a study of a cohort of HIV-infected women associated with the military sexual addiction in gay men and its association with HIV risks overt and subtle communications processes that occur between health care providers and clients about sexuality and HIV stages of change in safer sexual practices in a cohort of gay men personality variables associated with risk and infection in both homosexual and heterosexual menHIV/AIDS and Sexuality opens up the area of sexuality in people living with HIV and focuses much-needed attention on the issues involved in sexual expression, HIV transmission risk, and living with HIV infection. This book is an illuminating exploration into the subject that helps professionals better understand their clients and thus provide more compassionate and effective care.

In the global race to reach the end of AIDS, why is the world slipping off track? The answer has to do with stigma, money, and data. Global funding for AIDS response is declining. Tough choices must be made: some people will win and some will lose. Global aid agencies and governments use health data to make these choices. While aid agencies prioritize a shrinking list of countries, many governments deny that sex workers, men who have sex with men, drug users, and transgender people exist. Since no data is gathered about their needs, life-saving services are not funded, and the lack of data reinforces the denial. The Uncounted cracks open this and other data paradoxes through interviews with global health leaders and activists, ethnographic research, analysis of gaps in mathematical models, and the author's experience as an activist and senior official. It shows what is counted, what is not, and why empowering communities to gather their own data could be key to ending AIDS.

This much-needed book presents an introduction and overview of multicultural AIDS issues in social work practice. In a culturally diverse nation, it is essential that professionals look at AIDS within a cultural context in order to find the most effective treatment and prevention strategies for everyone. Emphasizing this need for a culturally sensitive approach, Multicultural Human Services for AIDS Treatment and Prevention increases social workers'often limited knowledge and experience with various social and ethnic groups. It provides specific suggestions and recommendations for program development and acts as a foundation upon which to build new strategies for policy, research, and practice. Multicultural Human Services for AIDS Treatment and Prevention emphasizes the importance of encouraging and sharing research that addresses AIDS and minority populations and assessing prevention, education, and behavioral change strategies from culturally specific and relevant perspectives. It includes chapters focusing on African Americans, Native American Indians, Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans, and Mexican prostitutes--groups that often suffer disproportionately from poverty and its myriad effects. Some topics discussed in the book are: helping clients reduce cultural dissonance how to enhance behavior change child welfare and permanency planning empowerment of clients and health care models knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding HIV/AIDS cultural contradictions and ambivalence in response to AIDSMulticultural Human Services for AIDS Treatment and Prevention is an extremely useful and informative book for all professionals in social work and human services who want to be better prepared to help all groups of people. The book is also an ideal text for upper-level social work students studying topics such as multicultural issues in social work practice, AIDS in a cultural context, and health policy and health care systems.

AIDS: Rights, Risk and Reason contains a mix of papers linking research with the development of theoretical frameworks in a readable and accessibole style. Issues examined include: perceptions of risk and risk-taking behaviour; rights and responsibilities; and the rationality that underpins individual and collective responses to HIV/AIDS.

It is now forty years since the discovery of AIDS, but its origins continue to puzzle doctors, scientists and patients. Inspired by his own experiences working as a physician in a bush hospital in Zaire, Jacques Pepin looks back to the early twentieth-century events in central Africa that triggered the emergence of HIV/AIDS and traces its subsequent development into the most dramatic and destructive epidemic of modern times. He shows how the disease was first transmitted from chimpanzees to man and then how military campaigns, urbanisation, prostitution and large-scale colonial medical interventions intended to eradicate tropical diseases combined to disastrous effect to fuel the spread of the virus from its origins in Leopoldville to the rest of Africa, the Caribbean and ultimately worldwide. This is an essential perspective on HIV/AIDS and on the lessons that must be learned as the world faces another pandemic.