Social issues facing HIV/AIDS today are as diverse as the people that are affected by the disease. Advocating for a large group of people takes action at the macro human service practice. The goals and intervention strategies will be similar to micro human service and will involve the same strategies to bring justice to human rights for all members of society. One strategy is including a broader range of other diversity in research in gender studies, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people (GLBT).
Men and GLBT people have not been addressed in mainstream research. These groups make up a large contingent of the population that is affected with HIV/AIDS today. Education through studies of these groups will help give the public a clearer picture on how to help make a difference in the future. When men come to the understanding that they are victimized by traditional gender roles and gender-biased social norms, just as women are, they become part of the solution and help women change these gender-biased norms and values (Ghajarieh & Kow, 2011).
Education is a key to opening the minds of individuals who have little contact with people that have HIV/AIDS. The publics’ knowledge of the disease is gender-biased. Most people are under the idea that it still is a gay man’s or poor person’s disease. HIV/AIDS has affected all ages, every race, and economic situations in every country. Knowledge through programs that put the spotlight on who is affected will give people a better idea on how to help. Education starts at an early age in school where children can be exposed to how HIV/AIDS in impacting their world today.
Another intervention strategy is about giving empowerment to those affected by the disease. The social work practice setting needs to be open up for engaging dialogue with individuals and large groups within a safe environment and a positive attitude ( Suk-hee, 2010). Social workers can achieve greater results with the power of positive approach. Empowering people through group counseling helps many people realize that they are not alone. By working together the group can achieve more.
HIV/AIDS first appeared in the homosexual/bisexual community in various urban centers in North America and spread rapidly in these groups. HIV/AIDS first emerged in North America among homosexual and bisexual men and is still more common in that group most of the AIDS services have been geared to gay men, leaving women without adequate support and/or treatment. In the past few years, pharmaceutical companies have developed medications that slow down the effects of HIV/AIDS.
When the disease first came out in the United States, everyone was afraid to breathe around the patients with HIV/AIDS or who had been exposed to the patients at all because they thought it might be contagious, which they were proven wrong because it’s not contagious at all. No one has to be afraid to get close to the patients who have the disease. The only way you can get the disease is through sexual contact with the patient or a contaminated needle used on the patient or sharing needles (as in drug addicts).
Since no one knows who has the disease, without extensive testing, everyone seems suspected of having the disease until proven differently because of how people had felt about the disease. To me, this is ridiculous, but one can understand the reasoning behind it, but now that I know how what when I may or others can contact the disease. It is best to be safe than sorry. African Americans suffer from negative sexual health outcomes at greatly disproportionate rates, with young women and young men who have sex with men particularly at risk.
A common misconception is that young African Americans simply are not as careful as whites in protecting their sexual and reproductive (Dubois- 2012) Nearly half a million people in the United States are living with HIV or AIDS. Although African Americans make up only about 13 percent of the population of the United States, almost half of those living with HIV or AIDS are African American In 2004, young black women made up 71 percent of HIV infections among young women ages 13-24.
(2006) Despite increasingly large amounts of funding for health initiatives being made available to poorer regions of the world, HIV infection rates and prevalence continue to increase worldwide. As a result, the AIDS epidemic is expanding and increasing globally. Worst affected are undoubtedly the poorer regions of the world as combinations of poverty, disease, famine, political and economic instability and weak health infrastructure exacerbate the severe and far-reaching impacts of the epidemic. Females are more at risk of contracting HIV than males. In 1997, women accounted for 41% of people living with HIV worldwide.
This figure had risen to almost 50% by 2002. This gender-bias is especially apparent in sub-Saharan Africa, where the majority of those infected are women and girls. Widespread wars and regional conflicts in Africa escalate, by orders of magnitude, the risk of rape of women and girls. The low social status of women, risky sexual practices, and endemic poverty in Africa contribute to the spread of the disease. The impact on women is less marked in Asia (where 28% of those infected are women), although women’s low socio-economic status renders them more susceptible to infection.Women’s increased vulnerability to HIV infection is not confined to developing countries. (UnAids – 2004).
References Ghajarieh, A. , & Kow, K. (2011). Addressing Men and Gender Diversity in Education: A Promising Solution to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic. Health Care For Women International, 32(4), 314-327. doi:10. 1080/07399332. 2010. 532577 Suk-hee, K. (2010). AIDS and the Question of Culture: Focus on Social Cognitive Theory.
Social Work In Public Health, 25(1), 1-5. doi:10. 1080/19371910802611849 Cases of HIV Infection and AIDS in the United States, by Race/Ethnicity, 2000-2004.
HIV/AIDS Surveillance Supplemental Report, 2006: 12(1). Accessed from http://www. cdc. gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2006 supp_vol12no1/table2. htm on 4/1/08 retrieved May 15, 2012 Dubois, Marcel, J. , Survey of Urban Aboriginals’ Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviours regarding HIV/AIDS and related Issues, for the Urban Aboriginal AIDS Awareness Project, Montreal, 1996. Retrieved May 17, 2012 UNAIDS: Report on the global AIDS epidemic – July 2004. Geneva; 2004. May 18, 2012.