Greek Healthcare Students ' Knowledge And Perceptions On The Aids Epidemic

Ever since the first cases of what eventually came to be known as AIDS were diagnosed in the early 1980s, people with HIV/AIDS have been stigmatized. Over time, there have been many misconceptions about this disease. Even though there have been many discoveries, and treatments for HIV have improved over time, there are still many people who understand very little about this disease. This lack of understanding, along with fear, misinformation about how the disease is transmitted, and “moral” judgments made about the types of people who contract HIV, all have led to stigmatization of, and discrimination against, people who are living with HIV/AIDS. Understanding the stigmatization of people with HIV/AIDS is an important social justice issue because that stigmatization can result in people with HIV being insulted, rejected, gossiped about, excluded from family and social activities, fired, and even jailed. People with HIV are no different from people suffering from other chronic diseases. Instead of being alienated, they have a right to be treated with fairness, respect, and dignity.

This deal with addressing the community, family and social networks that people are part of. Nurses should in this case analyze the different social environments that people live in so as to successfully address the AIDs pandemic. This is mainly due to the fact that people may tend to form their attitudes towards the disease depending on their social network. Nurses should form groups, and educate the people as a community, about the effects of the disease on both the community and family, an undertaking which will raise awareness among the community members. This is likely to help the community to be cautious and responsible for their actions, as well as prevent the promotion of any negative values that may increase chances of people in the society acquiring the disease (Levine & What Works Working Group, 2007). Additionally, nursing should address the issue of stigma that family and social networks have towards the AIDs pandemic and those suffering from it, and which hinder people from seeking help and knowing their status (Qubuda & Mphumela, 2009).

In today’s world we seem to put aside things that we consider no longer a threat. Well we are wrong to do this, because HIV/AIDS still affects over 5.4 million people that are walking around with this infection or full blown AIDS. They are friends, Criminals, neighbors, and even children attending school, etc. So, why do we think it is ok to not worry about a problem that does not have a cure, but only a life time of meds? Within this qualitative research method, we will explore Sexual risk, there or the Measures, Sexual risk, method, demographics, HIV/AIDS risk and may add other areas as they relate to this study.

In society, one’s identity is crucial to one 's existence. It can determine a large part of one’s life. Depending on one’s society, one can either live comfortably or live in a state of fear. Ultimately, people construct social norms which often lead to certain social behaviors. If one breaks or goes against the social norm, they are seen as an outcast. In Susan Sontag’s literally piece, Illness as Metaphor, and Mark Doty’s “Atlantis”, common pariahs were cancer and AIDS patients. It was socially unacceptable to have this disease because it went against the social norm. Overtime, only cancer’s reputation has improved tremendously because of our medical and technological advances. On the other hand, AIDS still carries the same stigma cancer once had during Sontag’s time mainly because one cannot just randomly contract it. Unlike cancer, contracting AIDS is one’s conscious choice. Typically, to contract AIDS, one engages in activities that go against the social norm. One way to contract AIDS is the use of dirty needles, or, through (homo) sexual activity.

The early days of the AIDS epidemic challenged the cartesian nature of biomedical culture. With its emphasis on empiricism, the superior biomedical mind could normally make sense of the inferior patient’s bodily concerns. In the early 80s, though, the scientific method seemed to be failing with AIDS, with no clear biological etiologic agent being identified, and rumors circulated. As the biomedical mind struggled to define and categorize AIDS, the moralistic nature of medical authority revealed itself. Instead of pathology residing in the biology of a patient, it appeared to transcend the patient’s biology and reveal deviant sexual behavior. Instead of being able to treat or study the disease, the diseased bodies were quarantined. Even when it was understood that AIDS had a viral cause, biomedicine’s quarantining practices became subtler, but still perpetuated the social stigma of AIDS patients. In this essay, I examine the nature of AIDS stigma through the lens of two biomedical professionals’ memories of the first decade of the epidemic. One such professional is Dr. M. Robert Hill, M.D. He is a retired internist of 68 years, who used to work at Missouri Baptist Medical Center in Town and Country, Missouri, and treated several AIDS patients before antiretroviral therapy was discovered. The other ethnographic source is Dr. Daniel Hanson, a current Immunology lecturer at Washington University in St. Louis, who was completing his second postdoctoral fellowship in immunology at

Though the disease is still infecting many, new technology and medical techniques that include medication have made it possible to live a normal life after being infected with the HIV virus. Doctors are now far past the era in which they would deny care to an HIV-positive patient and that is because they are aware of the disease and are not afraid. Being afraid of something can unknowingly turn a person into a monster. Since being educated doctors and other healthcare professionals have been able to turn a new leaf and hop over to the supporting side of AIDS. Other than being under a doctor’s care, successful strategies for combating AIDS include “increasing awareness about prevention strategies such as using clean needles and condoms and, most recently, promoting male circumcision” (Conley 442). All these biological measures combating the chemical nature of AIDS work hand in hand to reform the social structure of the disease. Those living with AIDS in the United States today are not looked at as if they are lepers, instead they are view as survivors and

AIDS was and continue to be a devastating illness that affected and currently is affecting millions of people worldwide. Throughout the world, AIDS had claimed over thirty-five million lives since it first appeared in 1981. Seventy million people had been infected. As of 2015, nearly forty million across the globe currently live with HIV and AIDS. This devastating disease is dangerous, belonging to both classes of blood born and sexually transmitted diseases. Two documentaries detailing both the scientific aspect and the social and personal effect of AIDS are Frontline's Age of AIDS and How to Survive a Plaque. These two documentaries contain a wealth of information on the diseases HIV and AIDS. Both of these viruses caused a great deal of

Every year a group of teens form El Paso goes through an extensive training of approximately eleven sessions. Once this program is completed they are then required to attend another training in which they are instructed on the HIV/AIDS’ history, prevention methods, and ways of spreading along with other influential factors. Once they have completed this training they are then certified as Teen Advisory Board educators. Once certified these teens begin outreach. They attend schools, from middle schools to colleges, to conduct presentations on HIV/AIDS. They stress the importance of having the right information in order to do the right choices. They talk about the risk factors that can increase the possibility of individuals becoming infected with this virus. Such factors include the usage of drugs and alcohol as well as peer pressure. In targeting these risk factors not only do they help lower the excessive use of drugs and alcohol but they are also preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Another goal of this program is to destroy ignorance. By giving these individuals the correct information they are trying to eliminate the stigmas that for decades have accompanied this

This essay will focus on the health condition of (HIV) Human immunodeficiency virus and its impact on an individual’s wellbeing.

These negative reactions have shaped the behaviour of infected individuals and have limited the effectiveness of prevention efforts. AIDS also evokes anxiety because of its association with death. People in AIDS group reported lower levels of social support in response to bereavement, as compared to that in cancer group indicating the social stigma attached AIDS and HIV stigma can be better understood when the perspectives are realized from both the outsider’s and the insider’s viewpoints. According to Goffman, stigma in context of HIV/AIDS may be interpreted from the point of view of the outside observer as follows, “Psychological, interpersonal, sociological, economic or political effects on persons who possess certain characteristics. Alternatively, the focus of attention may shift to those who identify themselves as not possessing the specified traits” or “Stigma may be understood from an interaction’s perspective based on the language of relationships, stigma viewed as a product of, and inherent in a relationship between ‘normal’ and the ‘other’.” This approach attributes state of mind or describes socio-economic effects of the possessor, the accuser, or the relationship of one or the other. Thus, the approach uses the viewpoints of persons who are themselves stigmatized and those who actually

'And the Band Played On' takes us to the period when the definition of AIDS does not exist. People have just knocked at the death's door. It takes the whole population without selecting them, from the children and youth to the old people, alcoholics, and drugs-addicts. The aim of the paper is to define a couple of problems that are discussed in the movie mentioned above.

Lack of information and skills, little contact to contraceptive methods including condoms and exposure to forced sex puts people at high risk of HIV infections. A series of complications to their use of health amenities may make it challenging for them to gain the information and health services they require. A growing quantity of people existing with HIV is being accused for transferring the virus to their sexual companion(s). Spreading HIV to others has been in the media since the widespread first began and some of the people worried have even been unlawfully accused and confined. It may appear evident to accuse someone for infecting someone with a virus that has the possibility to be lethal, this hypothesis and its penalties can cause several

This essay will discuss why stigma has a profound effect on a person affected by HIV/AIDS. It will first look at the definitions of stigma and explain the process and types of stigma. It will explain how people with HIV/AIDS can be affected by stigma. It will then look at the key characteristics found in stigma and explain why people with HIV/AIDS are stigmatised. It will further look at how stigma may have affected a person with HIV/AIDS in the 1980’s compared to how it may affect a person post 2000. It will explain why there may be differences between how a person with HIV/AIDS might have been stigmatised in the 1980’s and how they are stigmatised post 2000. Lastly, it will look at the potential effects of stigmatization that a person from a particular risk group with HIV/AIDS living in Asia could have compared to a person from another risk group living in the UK. The two risk groups being men who have sex with men in Asia and injection drug users in the UK. The reasons for these differences will also be explored.

AI/AN believes in strong social values. Present surveillance statistics from Center for Disease Control Prevention revealed HIV/AIDS is escalating amongst AI/AN (Sileo, 2004). When 2001 ended, 1304 AI/AN were living with AIDS. It was reported 1 in 1910 women was diagnosed with AIDS with the highest number of cases (N=145) among those 30-34 years of age (Sileo, 2004). The women were exposed through injection drug use and sexual relation with HIV positive and high-risk male partners. At that time it was reported that 1 in 485 AI/AN men were diagnosed with AIDS having the highest number of cases (N=659) again, within the 30-34 year age range (Sileo, 2004). Male to male exposure was a result of sexual contact, injection drug use, same sex and injection drug use behaviors, and heterosexual contact (Sileo, 2004).

Out of the nineteen public health in Georgia, nine of them had HIV cases rated above the national mean. 50% of the new HIV diagnosed cases are people between the ages of 14 to 30. The youth seems to be the ones highly affected by the disease. These infections concentrated more on the colored people, the poor, the homeless, health challenged and those using drugs. The National AIDS Fund describes the epidemic as, ‘a universal set of social and structural inequities’. Inequities like poverty, illiteracy levels, homophobia, poor health care, and racial prejudices promote the wide discrepancy of the disease effects in the community. The disease is likely to advance into a devastating stage of AIDS since the groups cannot access health care and mostly they cannot achieve the level of treatment required to reduce the effect of the virus on destroying the cells of immune system. To prevent more HIV infections among in youth and promote good health education becomes a significant and most crucial factor. This article looks into some approaches that can be pursued in educating the youth and also some of the ways of reducing the spread of HIV among the youths. The approach is also based in or is in line with the Healthy People 2020 objectives. The core objectives of this initiative are to attain a high-quality life free from injuries and premature death, health equity with no disparities, social and