"For Asians/Pacific Islanders (A/PIs), disclosure of
HIV may be particularly difficult because of its association with
death, illness, drugs, and homosexuality, topics deemed to be
"taboo" in Asian cultures Indeed, some researchers have postulated
that the stigma associated with HIV in Asian populations has
inhibited the reporting of cases a contention supported by studies
showing rates of risk behaviors and markers of risk behaviors among
Asians to be roughly equal to those of other groups even though
official tabulations of AIDS rates are much lower That A/PIs
attribute their infection to blood transfusions-a more culturally
acceptable source of infection-two to seven times more than other
individuals a disparity with no apparent realistic basis, also
speaks to the stigma of HIV within this population
For A/PI women infected with HIV, the issue of disclosure may be
further complicated by cultural and gender values that emphasize
sexual modesty, reticence regarding sex and sexuality and the
fulfillment of family obligations and responsibilities). A
declaration that one is HIV-positive may be viewed by the self and
others as a rejection of these core values. Furthermore, because
Asian cultures are predominantly collectivistic, where individuals
are defined as part of groups such as families rather than as
separate, independent entities being HIV-positive may be seen as a
negative reflection not only on oneself but also on one's family or
community. Therefore, the potential for shame and loss of face
following disclosure is likely to be greater in this cultural
context than in more individualistic cultures, making the
concealment of one's seropositivity even more attractive.
The influence of cultural values on the decision to disclose has
been suggested in previous studies. found that Spanish-speaking
Latina women disclosed to fewer people, and in particular to fewer
family members, than did English-speaking Latinas. A similar pattern
of results was found for men, with Whites disclosing more than
Latinos, and English-speaking Latinos disclosing more than
Spanish-speaking Latinos. These authors suggested that these ethnic
and cultural differences may be due to a difference in cultural
values, specifically familism and simpatia, that inhibit disclosure.
A desire to protect others was more frequently cited by Latino than
White men as the reason not to disclose, consistent with the
collectivistic orientation found in Latino cultures and therefore
supporting the cultural hypothesis. " Disclosure of HIV Infection
Among Asian/Pacific Islander American Women: Cultural Stigma and
Support
|
A challenge for the Men in the Third Millennium
|
In all
societies, men are known to engage in high-risk activities for
acquisition of HIV. Often men have more sexual contact than
women. Intravenous drug users are more often men than women. Due
to the high risk behavior of men, their female sexual partners
are at high risk of acquiring HIV infection. HIV is also more
easily transmitted from the male to the female due to biological
reasons |
78 kb pdf
|
|
A REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH ON HIV/AIDS |
Social
scientists have made significant research contributions by
examining how individuals and groups perceive risk and how
culture influences risk behaviours in a wide variety of
settings. Unfortunately this knowledge has seldom been
disseminated in fora directed to policy makers. To date, most
prevention efforts are still focusing on increasing individual
awareness about risks of transmission and promoting individual
risk reduction. Few HIV prevention programmes have been designed
where the socioeconomic and sociocultural contexts in which
individuals live are taken into consideration. |
|
|
Adolescent Girls and Young Women and HIV/AIDS |
Most at risk
are those with a history of sexual abuse, poverty, violence, or
limited educational and economic opportunities |
152 kb pdf |
Adolescent Women
Face Triple Jeopardy:
Unwanted Pregnancy,
HIV/AIDS
|
New HIV infections and AIDS cases continue to increase in
most developing countries, while the AIDS epidemic has most
recently reached a plateau or shown signs of a slight overall
decline in much of the developed world. Where AIDS is
increasing, new HIV infection is disproportionately
high among young women who contract the virus through sexual
intercourse…This same group has the highest rate worldwide of
unwanted pregnancy, pointing to a potentially significant
epidemiological overlap of reproductive health risk.
|
|
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AIDS: How a Killer Plague Can Be Stopped |
How bad is
it? The president of one country in southern Africa told the
recent international AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa,
that in 10 years his country will not exist. With a third
of its citizens infected with the human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV), it's only a matter of time before virtually his entire
country is wiped out by this modern plague. |
|
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AIDS: The fear syndrome |
AIDS is not
only an epidemic, but also a major crisis in public health with
social, economic and political repercussions, as well as with
important implications for human rights. At the level of the
virus as such, that is, at the level of its microscopic
structure and its modes of transmission and multiplication, we
have often – and rightly – had the impression that, the more
research progressed, the more elusive AIDS became. At a more
general level, as a global epidemic, AIDS is also,
unfortunately, defeating previous assumptions and posing new
threats. AIDS has become a multidimensional challenge. Over and
above the very real progress made in treating the disease, this
is the main lesson learned from more than 20 years of struggle
against AIDS: without a global response, it tends to spread out
of control, as is in fact happening today in several regions of
the world. Much too often, the struggle against AIDS is waged in
a piecemeal, fragmented way, when what is required is, on the
contrary, a high degree of coordination among all the social
players – including trade unions, which have a key role to play.
Today we know that, in order to be effective, an HIV-AIDS
prevention programme must target, in the first place, all those
who can act as intermediate links with the population: teachers,
employers, trade unionists, local chiefs, religious leaders,
healers, etc. In this respect, workers’ organisations have
excellent credentials. “ |
Pdf 73 kb |
|
AIDS Action testing |
An AIDS
awareness counselor recently summed up her experience of
society's response to AIDS: 'I believe that, although AIDS is a
new disease, it is laying bare all the old prejudices and
political injustices that already exist.' One area where this is
most apparent is the misuse of testing for HIV infection. |
|
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AIDS
Communication-an International view |
What is an
“international” perspective? |
|
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Aids orphans 'to double'
|
A report
compiled by aid agencies, presented to the International Aids
Conference in Barcelona, said extended families often fail to
cope, and many children are forced to live on the street |
|
|
AIDS-proof your marriage - use a condom |
Thirty-four
year-old Joan Gray has never led a dissolute life so she felt
she had little need to worry about using a condom or being at
risk for HIV/AIDS.
She was wrapped
up in the security of a Christian marriage anchored on trust.
Her husband Paul was also firmly rooted in the faith. "I trusted
him because he was a child of God. And I know that if you are a
child of God, you wouldn't do nothing to at all to hurt your
wife or your husband," she said ruefully as she reflected on her
ten-year marriage.
She is now
HIV-positive - not as a result of her husband cheating on her
but because he had had unprotected sex in a previous
relationship. "Five years after we got married he learned that
his ex-girlfriend had died of AIDS. He never went to get tested
and he never told me," she said. |
|
|
An analysis of the Policies, Pronouncements and Programmes on
HIV-related Stigma and discrimination in Nigeria |
More than two
decades into the HIV/AIDS epidemic, stigma and discrimination
against people who have HIV/AIDS (PLWH)
or are affected by HIV continue unabated. Although the global
pandemic has shown itself capable of triggering responses of
compassion, solidarity and support, bringing out the best in
people, their families and communities yet stigma and ostracism,
repression and discrimination continue to be reported in both
the rich developed and poor developing countries of the world.
Herek et a reported that AIDS remain a highly stigmatized
condition in the United States though the form of expression has
changed over the years. |
|
|
An ILO study on the socio-economic impact of HIV on infected
persons finds that the HIV-positive face the maximum
discrimination within their families |
ILO (India)
initiated a study to understand the socio-economic impact of
HIV/AIDS on infected persons and their families, particularly
women and children. The findings of this report, which was
published recently, are both meaningful and significant because
of the sensitivity with which the study was carried out. |
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An overview of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination
|
All over the
world, the epidemics of HIV and AIDS are having a profound
impact, bringing out the best and the worst in people. They
trigger the best when individuals group together in solidarity
to combat government, community and individual denial, and to
offer support and care to people living with HIV and AIDS. They
bring out the worst when individuals are stigmatized and
ostracized by their loved ones, their family and their
communities, and discriminated against individually as well as
institutionally. |
|
|
Analytical Review of Quarantine! : East European Jewish
immigrants and the New York City epidemics of 1892
|
Howard
Markel's Quarantine! examines the typhus fever and
cholera epidemics that struck New York City in early and late
1892, respectively. Because typhus fever was traced to a boat
load of Russian Jewish immigrants, Jews from throughout Eastern
Europe were stigmatized. Only months after typhus fever struck
the city, the cholera epidemic began. While the second disease
appeared more widespread, the Eastern European Jews were once
again blamed. A history of the political, health, immigration,
and discrimination issues of the year, the book is aimed at a
broad audience from high-schoolers to adults |
|
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Big Issues-Scaling up responses to HIV/AIDS |
Stigma looms
large and ominous, shadowing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It relates
to every HIV intervention, including general prevention, the
prevention of mother-to-child transmission, anti-retroviral
treatment, and care and support for the patient and family,
including children |
Pdf 206 kb |
|
Breaking the silence - Stigma, discrimination and HIV/AIDS |
Hers is not the sort of life anyone would wish on his or her
worst enemy. To describe it as rough would be an
understatement.
|
|
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Caregivers' Experiences Of Informal Support In The Context Of
HIV/AIDS |
Social
support is an important buffer for family caregivers of people
living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHIV/AIDS). With limited formal support
options, these caregivers have to rely increasingly on informal
networks. Yet, accessing this avenue is also fraught with
difficulty due to the stigmatising nature of HIV infection.
Research in this area is not just not sparse, but focuses
largely on sources of support and the circumscribing effects of
stigma. To further our understanding, a qualitative study was
conducted using various concepts from social support theory. |
|
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China’s Growing AIDS Epidemic Increasingly Affects Women |
Increases in the heterosexual transmission of HIV in China are
fueling concerns—including among senior Chinese leaders—that the
epidemic may be moving from specific regions and at-risk groups
into the general population, where the virus could more easily
prey on women's vulnerabilities. |
|
|
Community Reaction to Person with HIV/AIDS and their Parents in
Thailand |
Stigma and
discrimination against persons with HIV and AIDS (PHAs) are
unfortunate and in some cases tragic consequences of infection
that compound the suffering of some PHAs and their families.
Whether such consequences are rare or common, they should serve
to draw attention and response to the special burdens such
families face |
1,378 kb pdf
|
|
COPING MECHANISMS OF THE STIGMATIZED:
|
A stigmatized
person possesses and exhibits an attribute that conveys a
devalued personal and social identity within a particular social
context Stigmatized individuals are commonly the targets of
stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination |
|
|
COUPLES' PERCEPTIONS OF WIVES' CFS SYMPTOMS, SYMPTOM CHANGE, AND
IMPACT ON THE MARITAL RELATIONSHIP
|
The purpose
of this descriptive correlational study was to describe the
differences in couples' perceptions of wives' Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome (CFS) symptoms and to describe the relationship between
changing symptoms and the marital relationship. |
|
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Deadly silence barriers to communicating HIV/AIDS in schools |
An estimated
11.8 million 15 to 24-year-olds are living with HIV worldwide.
Schools are the obvious place to teach young people about the
risks of infection. But what is the best way to do this?
Research by ActionAid identifies a number of silences in
communication which are hindering efforts in the classroom. |
|
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Death a Result of Insufficient Care
|
Poor staffing
was the reason cited for the death of Mike Hurewitz, the living
liver donor at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, who died after a
portion of his liver was transplanted into his brother
|
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|
DENIAL |
Because
HIV/AIDS carries so much stigma (qv) there are many pressures
for denying a seropositive status or not seeking a test.
Individuals may have a psychological aversion to hearing news of
what is considered to be virtually a death sentence and there
are more practical disadvantages such as the high chances of
being sacked or difficulties in getting insurance as well as
marital problems when serostatus is known. |
|
|
|
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Disclosure of HIV Infection Among Asian/Pacific Islander
American Women: Cultural Stigma and Support
|
This decision
may be particularly difficult for Asian/Pacific Islander (A/PI)
women, owing to HIV's association with topics considered "taboo"
in Asian cultures. This study explored the process, influencing
factors, and consequences of disclosure among a sample of 9
HIV-positive A/PI women. On the basis of qualitative interviews
and quantitative social network data, findings suggest that
these women are acutely aware of and affected by the stigma
attached to HIV and that the decision to disclose is influenced
by fears about being stigmatized, concerns about disappointing
or burdening others, and concerns about discrimination.
|
|
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Discrimination Against Children Affected by HIV/AIDS |
Discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS and their
families is widespread in India. People whose HIV status is
known may lose their homes, their jobs, and their families, and
may be denied medical care.77 Children who are HIV-positive, or
whose caregivers are, may be denied access to school or treated
badly there, kept at home to care for sick family members, or be
unable to pay school fees because the family wage earner is sick
or dead.78 Extended family members may refuse to care for
children orphaned by AIDS, especially those who are also
HIV-positive. Institutions, including health care facilities
and orphanages, may make improper disclosures of children’s test
results and reject HIV-positive children. Children already
facing other forms of discrimination—sex workers, children of
sex workers, Dalit and lower-caste children, and street
children—suffer more. Girls are especially vulnerable to HIV
transmission if they are targeted for sexual abuse or have less
access to information about HIV prevention and related issues.
They are also less likely than boys to be given adequate food,
medical care, or education, and more likely to be pulled out of
school to care for a sick family member or to take over domestic
work. This section documents discrimination HIV/AIDS-affected
children face in health services and in education. |
|
|
Discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS and
associated factors: a population based study in the Chinese
general population
|
Around 42%
of the respondents exhibited discriminatory attitudes in at
least five out of the 20 relevant items. For instance, about 42%
would avoid making physical contact with PLWHA; 35% believed
that all infected medical staff should be dismissed and about
47% would agree with enacting a law to prohibit PLWHA from
visiting Hong Kong. A sizeable proportion of the respondents
also hold negative perceptions about PLWHA (for example, 43.7%
agreed that the majority of PLWHA are promiscuous, 20.7% thought
that PLWHA are merely receiving the punishment they deserve,
etc). Multiple regression analysis found that age, HIV related
knowledge, the above mentioned negative perceptions about PLWHA,
fear related to AIDS, and exposure to HIV related information
were independent predictors of discriminatory attitudes towards
PLWHA. About 30% would give PLWHA the lowest priority in
resource allocation among five groups of patients with chronic
diseases. |
Pdf 102 kb |
|
Epidemic Ravages Caregivers; Thousands die from diseases
contracted through needle sticks |
Over the next
20 years, the epidemic would ravage the nation's medical
workers. Thousands of needle stick victims would die of AIDS,
hepatitis and other blood-borne infections. Tens of thousands
more would contract devastating diseases. Hundreds of millions
of dollars would be spent every year on replacing and treating
dying and infected workers. |
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ECUMENICAL HIV/AIDS POSTER –FIGHTING HIV/AIDS-RELATED STIGMA AND
DISCRIMINATION |
HIV is not a virus that happens to "someone else" or to other
communities - it is present everywhere in the world, including
the United States. Stigma and discrimination contribute to the
spread of HIV and compound the suffering of those who are living
with HIV and their loved ones. Silence about HIV/AIDS
has perpetuated ignorance about the facts, risky behavior
and death
|
|
|
Evolved Disease-Avoidance Processes and Contemporary Anti-social
Behavior: Prejudicial attitudes and avoidance of People with
Physical Disabilities |
Drawing on
evolutionary psychological logic, we describe a model that links
evolved mechanisms of disease-avoidance to contemporary
prejudices against individuals with physical disabilities.
Because contagious diseases were often accompanied by anomalous
physical features, humans plausibly evolved psychological
mechanisms that respond heuristically to the perception of these
features, triggering specific emotions (disgust, anxiety),
cognitions (negative attitudes), and behaviours (avoidance). |
130 kb pdf |
|
EXPECTATIONS AND SOCIAL INTERACTIONS OF CHILDREN WITH AND
WITHOUT MENTAL RETARDATION |
Mentally
retarded and nonretarded perceiver children conversed by
telephone with a child who was described as a special or
regular education student. Perceivers reported that
special and regular education telephone partners
behaved differently during the conversation even though
observers who were unaware of how telephone partners had been
described did not detect behavioral differences between them.
These same observers did detect differences in stereotype
related social behaviors of mentally retarded and nonretarded
perceivers, but only when perceivers thought they were speaking
to a regular education student. |
|
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Fear and Stigma: The Epidemic within the SARS Outbreak |
Because of
their evolving nature and inherent scientific uncertainties,
outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases can be associated with
considerable fear in the general public or in specific
communities, especially when illness and deaths are substantial.
Mitigating fear and discrimination directed toward persons
infected with, and affected by, infectious disease can be
important in controlling transmission. Persons who are feared
and stigmatized may delay seeking care and remain in the
community undetected. |
|
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GOEDGEDACHT FORUM FOR SOCIAL REFLECTION
|
The potential
destructive impact of AIDS is enormous. It can successively
destroy individuals, families, communities and villages and is
certain to affect both the national and household economies.
|
|
|
Hidden Battle-family & community |
The AIDS
epidemic will cause significant increases in illness and death
in prime age adults. This will affect both households and
communities. Prime age adult illness and death will manifest
itself through negative social, economic and developmental
impacts. The economic impacts at the household level of the
epidemic are decreased income, increased costs, decreased
productive capacity and changing expenditure patterns |
Pdf 76 kb |
|
|
Currently,
HIV/AIDS has been reported in virtually every racial and ethnic
population, every age group, and every socioeconomic group in
every State and most large cities in the United States.
Initially identified among men who have sex with men on the East
and West Coasts, the AIDS epidemic is composed of diverse
multiple subepidemics that vary by region and community. By the
end of 1998, more than 680,000 cases of AIDS had been reported,
and nearly 410,800 people had died from HIV disease or AIDS. |
|
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HIV/AIDS, STIGMA AND RELIGIOUS RESPONSES |
Religious
groups, in general, have a reputation for responding to the
issue of HIV in negative terms. Factors that influence this
perception have included judgmental comment from religious
leaders; debate about condoms; and an obstructive stance
towards policy development, particularly regarding drug use,
commercial sex, and harm reduction approaches. The religious
sector has been largely unwilling to engage in any way that
could imply dilution of moral standards. As a result, people
with HIV have experienced rejection by religious people,
congregations or institutions. |
|
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Holocaust as a Paradigm of Empathy
|
Since 1945
we have seen genocide repeated, in Cambodia and Uganda, in
Rwanda and Bosnia. Modernity, with its access to science and
technology, has perfected the killing of others in a way that
makes the carnage exacted by religious wars of the past pale by
comparison. In fact, the very question "Why be good?" challenges
the assumption of modern Western thought that goodness is
innate. If we have to ask the question, then perhaps we are not
good; what we are trying desperately to do is to find reasons to
keep at bay the chaos unleashed by seeing what we human beings
really are. The Shoah is not an historical aberration,
but a paradigm of human behaviour |
|
|
Home Care
for PLWHA: The Power of our Community |
The HIV/AIDS pandemic has created a crisis of unprecedented
proportion that greatly impacts society as a whole, especially women
and their reproductive health. Communities everywhere are
struggling to respond
|
410 kb pdf |
|
Illness, Stigma and AIDS |
Imagine a
disease that arouses great fear throughout the United States,
especially in New York and other large cities where it is
rampant. Imagine that the disease has no cure and is fatal to
most people who manifest its symptoms. Physicians prescribe a
variety of treatments but with little success |
Pdf 119 kb |
|
Impact of AIDS on Older People in Africa: Zimbabwe Case Study |
The main
focus of the project is to "identify barriers that prevent older
people from providing adequate & fulfilling care to their
children dying from HIV/AIDS & subsequently, to their orphaned
grandchildren". |
|
|
Introduction to Beliefs, Attitudes, and Ideologies
|
Certain
opinions seem to go together. People who support affirmative
action also seem likely to advocate stronger gun control, to
oppose capital punishment, and to hold a pro-choice position on
abortion. On the surface these diverse opinions do not seem to
follow from one another logically--there are even some implied
inconsistencies among them. And yet, knowing that a person holds
one of the opinions often enables us to predict correctly that
he or she also holds the others. This is possible, in part,
because the opinions all appear to follow from a common set of
underlying beliefs, attitudes, and values--from an ideology.
|
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Men of Quality are not afraid of equality. |
Besides deep
changes in society, what we need is a deeply spiritual
transformation in identity of men |
2,619 kb pdf |
|
Must-Tell Rules Would Keep Sexually Active Teens Away
|
Almost half
of the adolescent girls who seek prescribed contraception and
other sexual health services would cease doing so if they knew
that their parents were going to be notified -- but most would
continue to have sexual intercourse, indicate survey results
published recently in JAMA |
|
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Overcoming the stigma of chronic illness-Strategies for
‘straightening out’ a spoiled identity |
This paper
addresses the concept of chronic illness as a socially
constructed experience of stigma. The stigma of having a
chronic illness affects the person’s self-concept,
capacity to adapt to the illness and the quality of
his/her social networks. Social stigma is a
de-legitimizing social process derived from both popular
and medical views of chronic illness. Based on research
into the coping strategies of a range of people with
long-term, serious chronic illnesses, the paper argues
that Government health policies and services in Australia
can best help people with chronic illness by supporting
their self-help groups and community-based activities.
|
106 kb
pdf |
|
Peer
influence groups: identifying dense clusters in large networks |
Early
social network theorists argued that the power of social
networks lies in large-scale connectivity. The extended
effects of social networks are clear when we consider the spread
of diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, that have crossed the globe
through an intimate but far-reaching social network. |
743 kb pdf |
|
People with Disabilities and Social Work: Historical and
Contemporary Issues |
From the
earliest recorded history, people with disabilities have been
ostracized, rejected, and discriminated against in society.
Although social work has a history rich in advocacy for
oppressed people, the profession has been hesitant to become
involved with people with disabilities. |
|
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Positively Abandoned: Stigma and Discrimination against
HIV-positive Mothers and their Children in Russia |
Russia is
home to one of the fastest-growing and potentially massive AIDS
epidemics in the world, but the government has done little to
address the problem. As a result, the Russian public today,
though highly educated, is almost as ignorant of HIV and how it
is spread as it was ten years ago, when AIDS was hardly known in
Russia |
Pdf 303 kb |
|
Preventing Discrimination and Reducing Stigma and Isolation
|
In order to
provide better access to health services for people with
hepatitis C, it is particularly important that the
discrimination common in health care settings is acknowledged
and actively challenged |
413 kb pdf
|
|
PSYCHIATRIC STIGMA follows you everywhere you go for the rest of
your life |
A
problem you should think about before consulting a
mental health professional, or encouraging someone else
to do so, is the stigma of having received the so-called
therapy. If you seek counseling or "therapy" from a
psychiatrist or psychologist, how are you going to
answer questions on job applications, applications for
occupational or professional licenses, a driver's
license, applications for health or life insurance, and
school and college applications, such as "Have you ever
had psychiatric or psychological therapy?" When you
apply for a job or occupational license or a driver's
license or apply for an insurance policy or admission to
an educational program you will often be required to
answer this or a similar question. When you answer such
questions candidly and admit having received psychiatric
or psychological "help", the result often will be loss
of important opportunities |
|
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Rooting Out
AIDS-Related Stigma and Discrimination |
A debate over how best to weed out AIDS-related stigma and
resulting discrimination is growing within international health
circles, as experts try to address these stubborn obstacles to
HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. While there is increased
consensus that HIV/AIDS programs must tackle these issues
directly, researchers have yet to find an effective means of
tracking changes in attitudes toward infected people |
|
|
Sacred lives
|
Previous
studies have shown sexually exploited Aboriginal children and
youth form a disproportionately high percentage of the sex trade |
Pdf 818 kb |
|
School-related Issues Among HIV-Infected Children
|
Only 3% of
school-age children were too ill to attend school, and almost
all were enrolled in public schools. The number of HIV-infected
children reaching school age will continue to grow, and public
schools will bear the responsibility for educating these
children. Health care providers will increasingly be called upon
for guidance by both educators and families to assure that
HIV-infected children receive the best education possible.
|
|
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Shaking off
'shame' |
In a
civilized society, people should not be scared to talk about
their ailments -- especially when the illness may have been
contracted from medical product infected with a potentially
fatal virus. Yet in Japan, between 1980 and 2001, an estimated
10,000 people may have been infected with the hepatitis C virus
(HCV) after being injected with a tainted blood coagulant during
labor or surgery -- but most choose to keep their condition
secret. |
|
|
Socio-economic Impact of HIV/AIDS on Children in a Low
Prevalence Context: the Case of Senegal |
WE examine
the socio-economic impacts of HIV/AIDS on children in Senegal as
well as the impacts of the response policies implemented by the
different actors |
92 kb pdf
|
|
|
|
SOCIAL CAPITAL, STIGMA AND HIV/AIDS IN THE WORKPLACE: A CASE
STUDY OF THE GAUTENG |
As the world
enters the third decade of the AIDS epidemic, it has spread with
great speed. The epidemic has claimed more than three million
lives in 2003, and an estimated five million people acquired
HIV, bringing to 40 million the number of people globally living
with the virus (United Nations Joint Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS,
2003). According to UNAIDS and the World Health Organization
(WHO) report (2002:16), the annual number of new infections has
remained steady, but it hides dynamic trends in the economy and
population. |
Pdf 237 kb |
|
STD Screening, Testing, Case Reporting, and Clinical and Partner
Notification Practices: A National Survey of US Physicians
|
STD screening
levels are well below practice guidelines for women and
virtually nonexistent for men. Case reporting levels are below
those legally mandated; physicians rely instead on patients for
partner notification. Health departments must increase
collaboration with private physicians to improve the quality of
STD care |
115 kb pdf
|
|
Stigma and Acceptance of Persons with Disabilities |
We explore
this critical aspect of the social context by investigating
employee acceptance of a coworker who has a disability. We
conceptualize acceptance specifically in terms of an incumbent
employee’s attitude toward a coworker who has a disability,
perceptions, of fairness of accommodations the coworker
receives, and employment judgments about that coworker (with
respect to hiring, promoting, and retaining. |
144 kb pdf |
|
Stigma and Discrimination Defined |
[Erving] Goffman defined stigma as an "attribute that is deeply
discrediting" that reduces the bearer "from a whole and usual
person to a tainted, discounted one." Since Goffman, alternative
definitions have varied considerably. Two reasons for this
variation are that the concept has been applied to an enormous
array of different circumstances -- from schizophrenia to exotic
dancing -- and that it has been studied from the perspective of
many disciplines. We attempt to advance the study of stigma by
proposing a definition that encompasses these differences and
that attends to important critiques noting that much theory
about stigma is uninformed by the lived experience of the people
being studied and that research on stigma has an individualistic
focus, viewing stigmas as something in the person rather than a
designation that others affix to the person. |
|
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Stigma and Discrimination: Field Experiences and Research from
Africa, Asia & Ukraine |
“A woman will
never decide to do the testing. If she finds herself
HIV-positive she is signing three deaths: psychological death,
social death & physical death. Don’t you think that is a lot?” |
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Stigma in our Schools and Communities |
Stigma is
fundamentally different from discrimination. Most people
understand what discrimination is, but many are not clear what
stigma means. Discrimination focuses attention on the producers
of rejection and exclusion—those who discriminate against others
for any number of reasons. Stigma directs attention to the
people who are the recipients of these behaviors. |
136 kb pdf |
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Stigma Intervention & Research for International Health |
The concept
of stigma is rooted in history and social science, but the
historical concept of physical stigmata and the sociological
framework of deviance and social interactions fall short as a
guide to public health interventions and research to eliminate
or mitigate undesirable stigma. A wide range of social
phenomena, usually undesirable but not necessarily so, may be
considered under the heading of stigma. |
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Stigma, HIV/AIDS and prevention of mother-to-child transmission
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HIV/AIDS-related stigma has been a major stumbling block in
addressing all aspects of HIV prevention, treatment and care
across the globe, |
148 kb pdf
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Stigma, Threat, and Social Interactions |
The chapters
in this and many other volumes attest to the importance of
stigma as a construct in psychology, sociology, and related
disciplines. Not surprisingly, stigma enjoys a long history as
a central construct in social psychology investigated by both
psychological and sociological social psychologists. Many
theorists have explicitly or implicitly woven stigma into their
explanations of stereotyping, prejudice, social justice, and
social identity. Researchers have accumulated a wealth of
information regarding the impact of stigmatized others (or
“targets”) on affective and cognitive processes of perceivers
and a more modest but substantial amount of information
regarding the impact of a stigma on the bearer. Researchers
have also accumulated much knowledge on the social identity of
the stigmatized, the consequences of membership in stigmatized
groups, and coping with stigma |
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Stigma is Social Death |
While
respondents cited a variety of sources of stigma, most
frequently mentioned were the attitudes and practices of the
mental health system and its workforce. Following are attitudes,
beliefs and practices within the mental health system thought to
be stigmatizing. Issues relating to power and control were most
often mentioned. These included the practice of forced treatment
as well as threats of forced treatment or of no treatment.
People also cited lack of involvement in treatment planning or
other aspects of decision-making about their lives. In addition,
restrictions on the freedom to come and go; being "placed" in a
house or apartment, and other examples were given. The
experience of having lower status than staff within the mental
health system was commonly mentioned. Many examples were given,
including cues within the physical environment such as separate
staff-client bathrooms and eating areas, demeaning and
infantilizing interactions between staff and
consumers/survivors, differences in status embedded in program
policies, and discriminatory treatment in employment of people
with psychiatric disabilities as mental health workers. |
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Strategies for working on the theme “stigma” |
Often stigma
is not due to the presence of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
Instead it is due to a whole series of assumptions about what
the presence of the virus implies. These assumptions can relate
to class-status, sexual morality, hygiene, gender, ethnicity and
so on. So when a woman living with HIV is refused a job in
Johannesburg, this may be as much to do with the employer’s
social prejudices, as it has with the fear of the virus, and the
workers long-term health prospects. |
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Survey Suggests Lack of Awareness
Heightens Risk for Sexually Transmitted Diseases |
New survey
results unveiled today by the American Social Health Association
(ASHA) - an organization dedicated to preventing sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs) -- suggest that lack of awareness
may put Americans at risk for contracting STDs. |
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Swapo Man Proposes 'Disclosure' of HIV When Person is Buried |
A TOP Swapo
official yesterday proposed that the globally respected norm of
"no disclosure" of illness should be relaxed when it comes to
HIV. |
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The burden of stigma |
Few people
with HIV/AIDS escape the stigma and discrimination that often
comes with the disease. When those who are infected live on the
fringes of society, their misfortune is perceived by many people
as punishment for errant lifestyles. Drug addicts, sex workers,
men who have sex with men bring the virus on themselves, say
those who deny our shared humanity. HIV-positive people are
driven underground as a consequence, fearing the prejudice and
intolerance of communities which are not prepared to accept
them. The epidemic continues unabated and soon becomes
everyone's problem. |
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The Components and Impact of Stigma Associated with EAP
Counseling |
The economic
and social impact of workers with HIV/AIDS on businesses has not
waned with the increased public complacency regarding the virus
that seem to have marked the 1990s/ As we approach the beginning
of the third decade of the AIDS pandemic, increasing numbers of
businesses can expect to be faced with the reality of infected
employees. |
17 kb pdf
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The Impact of Relationship Violence, HIV, and Ethnicity on
Adjustment in Women |
Results
indicated that HIV-positive women reported significantly more
depressive symptoms, slightly more anxiety, but no differences
on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms than
HIV-negative women. Women victimized by relationship violence
also reported more depressive symptoms and anxiety and evidenced
significantly more PTSD symptoms than nonabused women. Indeed,
58% of victimized women evidenced significant PTSD symptoms.
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THE
INVISIBILITY OF LESBIANS WITH AIDS |
There is
very little medical documentation of woman-to-woman sexual
transmission of AIDS. But a significant number of women who
identify primarily as lesbians have contracted AIDS through
intravenous drug use or heterosexual sex. |
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The Social Epidemiology of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired
Immunodeficiency Syndrome |
Social
epidemiology is defined as the study of the distribution
of health outcomes and their social determinants. It
builds on the classic epidemiologic triangle of host,
agent, and environment to focus explicitly on the
role of social determinants in infectious disease
transmission and progression. These determinants are
the "features of and pathways by which societal conditions
affect health". Early studies of human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) focused on
individual characteristics and behaviors in determining HIV
risk, an approach that Fee and Krieger refer to as
"biomedical individualism." Biomedical individualism
is the basis of risk factor epidemiology; by
contrast, the social epidemiology perspective
emphasizes social conditions as fundamental causes of disease.
Social epidemiologists examine how persons become
exposed to risk or protective factors and under what
social conditions individual risk factors are related
to disease. Social factors are thus the focus of
analysis and are not simply adjusted for as
potentially confounding factors or used as proxies for
unavailable individual-level data. Social factors are
indeed critical to understanding nonuniform
infectious disease patterns that emerge as a result
of the dependent nature of disease transmission or
the idea that an outcome in one person is dependent upon
outcomes and exposures in others |
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The Most Vulnerable of the Epidemic—Orphans
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It’s no
wonder that when protecting orphans, advocates go back to the
basics—stop the stigma. Promote education and awareness. As
Archbishop Bonifatius Haushiku declared at the opening of
Catholic AIDS Action in Namibia, an organization that helps
orphans, HIV/AIDS is a disease, not a sin. |
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The role of stigma in reasons for HIV disclosure and
non-disclosure to children |
Given that
approximately 80% of women with AIDS are within their
reproductive years uncertainty about the future can include
concern about who will take care of their children should they
become incapacitated or die This additional stress can directly
impact both the family and children, particularly when women
must ‘hide’ their illness to protect their children. Relatedly,
mothers with HIV infection may also face the realities of the
stigma associated with HIV. |
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The
Scope of Injuries as Public Health and Research Problems |
It is
interesting that notions of fault and negligence of individuals
immediately involved in damaging transfers of mechanical,
thermal, chemical, and radiation energy have seldom been applied
to interpersonal transfers of harmful biologic organisms. In
medieval times, persons thought to be carriers of the plague,
but who actually were not, were persecuted and in some instances
murdered.(2) But in modern times people seldom if ever think of
suing someone who conveys bacteria or viruses that result in
disease. Surely the person who knowingly has a disease that is
transmitted by sneezing in crowds, kissing, sexual intercourse,
or whatever and who then infects others by engaging in those
activities is no less negligent than the alcoholic who drives
while intoxicated and injures someone. Why do we believe that
the latter is somehow more subject to control by legalistic
fault finding and punishment than the former? Infectious-disease
epidemiologists seldom if ever concern themselves with blame
assignment, although carriers of the more serious diseases may
be pursued by public-health physicians for the purpose of
treating the disease and stopping the chain of transmission. Yet
the primary purpose of police and often of expert investigation
of car crashes is to assign fault in reports or to testify in
lawsuits for damages. |
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