December 2019 Spotlight is on HIV/AIDS awareness

HIV awareness is quite important because more than 1 million people in the United States are living with HIV and 1 in 7 don't even know it. HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus, which is the virus that causes HIV infection. The abbreviation “HIV” can refer to the virus or to HIV infection. AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. AIDS is the most advanced stage of HIV infection. HIV attacks and destroys the infection-fighting CD4 cells of the immune system. The loss of CD4 cells makes it difficult for the body to fight infections and certain cancers. Without treatment, HIV can gradually destroy the immune system and advance to AIDS. HIV is spread through sexual contact, blood contact or from the breast milk of a person with HIV. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is the use of HIV medicines to treat HIV infection. People on ART take a combination of HIV medicines (called an HIV regimen) every day. ART is recommended for everyone who has HIV. ART can’t cure HIV infection, but HIV medicines help people with HIV live longer, healthier lives. HIV medicines can also reduce the risk of HIV transmission. It is also important to decrease the stigma and discrimination that people living with HIV experience daily.
 

Source:

HIV/AIDS: The Basics Understanding HIV/AIDS. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2019, from https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/understanding-hiv-aids/fact-sheets/19/45/hiv-aids--the-basics

Check out the titles below for more info on HIV/AIDS awareness:

Troubling the Angels by Patricia A. Lather; Chris Smithies
 

Educator Patti Lather and psychologist Chris Smithies observed and chronicled support groups for women diagnosed with HIV. Whether black, Latina, poor, or middle class, the women in these groups share the common bond of living with HIV/AIDS, and they describe how it affects their lives in terms full of practical reality and moving poignancy, as they fight the disease, accept, reflect, live, and die with and in it.The authors weave into these accounts their own experiences as researchers, but also as women emotionally tied to the sufferings of sisters, mothers, wives, and lovers with HIV/AIDS.Finally, the reader is provided with statistics and fact boxes that put these women's words in context for a fuller understanding of the epidemic of HIV/AIDS as it affects its fastest growing population. In an epilogue, Lather and Smithies revisit these women in 1995 and 1996, not only to once again chronicle their lives with HIV/AIDS, but to visit the friends they had made and to mourn the friends they have lost.

 

HIV and the Pathogenesis of AIDS by Jay A. Levy

 

This updated edition on HIV pathogenesis provides current information on HIV and AIDS, and includes the latest research. It defines the future directions that are being taken to find a solution to the illness.

 

 

 

 

AIDS and HIV-Related Diseases by Josh Powell

 

AIDS and HIV-Related Diseases: An Educational Guide for Professionals and the Public is a compelling exploration of how disease affects and "devalues" populations in our society. Mr. Powell, and expert in HIV and AIDS awareness and related public health policy, presents this important resource as a viable way to explain the "system" of disease progression and control and the complicated terms and protocols that dictate AIDS and HIV treatment, education, and social policy. With extensive appendixes and illustrative models, this fundamental handbook demystifies complicated medical language, discusses new or alternative treatments, and provides insight and direction for HIV-prevention education and counseling infected clients.

 

The Sociology of HIV Transmission by Michael Bloor
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What contribution is sociology making in understanding the social and cultural context in which HIV transmission occurs? In this authoritative study, Michael Bloor provides a lucid overview of the vital contribution sociology has made and is making in the study of HIV transmission. He examines the epidemiology of the HIV epidemic in its different manifestations in the developing world and in the West, looking at sex tourism prostitution, intravenous drug users, hemophiliacs and transfusion recipients, and heterosexual and homosexual transmission. He goes on to look at reports of sociological studies of risk behavior with men who have sex with men, syringe sharing, and risk behavior in heterosexual males and females. These studies are then used to critically examine the different theoretical models of risk behavior and consider their implications for disease prevention. Drawing on the author's extensive research for illustration, this accessible volume will be essential reading for scholars, researchers, and students in medical sociology, health studies, sexuality, and family studies. It will also prove highly informative to health and social work practitioners working in areas related to AIDS, health promotion, health education, and sex education.