Social

impact of
AIDS
Research Fundaments

Diana Fernanda Bracamonte Dyck

Industrial Engineering | 1 Semester
 How AIDS/HIV does impacts society?
To the year 2002, above 22M people had lost their lives to AIDS and
42M were living with it. To this day in Latin America, there are 1.8M of
infected people by the HIV. The country with most affected is Africa, and
on that note is also curious to refer that every year the epidemic attacks
more females that at the same time are younger and poorer. The thing
about AIDS is that it cannot be transmitted by social contact, so why
does people get all freaked out by the 'possibility' of getting infected
when there is none?
This essays topic has its importance in worldwide talking it has been
around for a couple of decades and even nowadays it still considered a
taboo topic, how people have all this prejudices and make diseased feel
bad about themselves for something they cant control is outrageous.
Society gets affected to different levels as it is: economically,
emotionally and mentally, because of all the repercussions that come
with AIDS/HIV there is a wide range to what really affects people.
Economically talking AIDS epidemic makes the working hand lower a lot,
especially when people still get discriminated, rejected and, as cause of
this, makes them unconfident of themselves, they don't feel as
comfortable with their own lives as they were before the diagnosis
because of all the looks upon them, and all the bad looks directed to
them. The AIDS epidemic may also divert public spending from
investments in physical and human capital to health expenditures, for
example if children's education, health and nutrition suffer through this
we may encounter with an economic growth and development decline.
When we start on the social medium of all the issue, we get very close
with this specific term: social exclusion, which is the Absence of most of
life chances that some have and others do not(Aniorte.nic.net, 2013).
The thing about AIDS is that the discrimination and stigma continues to
be major hindrances to the efforts of the people infected, and this
doesnt let them continue with their lives as they would normally do.
The first social circle that is affected is the family/partner, automatically
after knowing the condition of the infected the first reactions that they
get from family, friends and partners go from: Rejection (75%),
Solidarity (14%), Aggression (5%), indifference (4%) and others (2%),
all this reactions, again, are derivate to the shock state of the closest
ones but also because of the stigma we have as a community that you
can get infected if any type of contact happens, even eye contact,
people avoid it at all times.
The impact on households begins as soon as a member of a household
start suffering of the disease psychologically, socially and economically
to the level of losing the income of one family member to expending to
cover medical costs of said member (un.org, 2013) this basically means
that all the support they have as infected and rejected people is
ultimately their family and their close friends which is a burden to both
parties the HIV person infected doesnt feels like being a extra weight on
their family and the family needs to provide for both parties.
Emotionally we start with some serious and deep feelings. HIV infected
go through a whirland of emotions at the time they get detected, for
example, when waiting for a specific result of an exam and you are
eating your nails and biting your lips and all makes you nervous and it's
just a note. What about knowing something that would have to do with
all your live?
Fear is a common emotion that continues throughout the course of HIV
and AIDS. The stigma associated with HIV and AIDS can produce
feelings of guilt or shame. After the initial diagnosis, it is common to feel
like you are to blame, or that you should have known better "according
to the authors of "Psychological Aspects of Living with HIV Disease," an
article published in "Western Journal of Medicine." These feelings --
along with abandonment by loved ones -- can damage your self-image.
You may also feel that you are undesirable" (Livestrong,2014)
Individuals with HIV have also been found to experience higher levels of
loneliness than the general population; "The social stigma of living with
an HIV diagnosis may contribute to a lack of connectedness to support
persons and lack of adherence to antiretroviral therapy," (McDowell,
2013) People diagnosed with AIDS, may develop post-traumatic stress,
because of this important to remember that we are dealing with deeper
emotions that should be treated by a specialist. This Disorder is
characterized by anxiety, ignorance and avoidance of the issue at hand.
All this information reunited gives us a far view of what AIDS is and how
it impacts on our society and the truth is that as a together we should
support each other instead of bringing everyone down, is learning and
teaching other people the issues and how to address them, dont be so
discriminatory with each other, be more sensible and try to think of
other peoples thoughts and emotions before doing something rash.
REFERENCES:
The Impact of AIDS: DEMOGRAPHIC IMPACT OF AIDS. (2002, January 1).
Retrieved November 10, 2014, from
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/AIDSimpact/5_CHAP_II.pdf
The Impact of AIDS: IMPACT ON HOUSEHOLDS. (2002, January 1). Retrieved
November 10, 2014, from
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/AIDSimpact/6_CHAP_III.pdf
Emotional Effects of HIV and AIDS. (2014, March 1). Retrieved November 10,
2014, from http://www.livestrong.com/article/87706-emotional-effects-hiv-aids/
Estigma y discriminacin hacia las personas con VIH y sida. (n.d.). Retrieved
November 10, 2014, from
http://www.msssi.gob.es/ciudadanos/enfLesiones/enfTransmisibles/sida/estigma
.htm
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http://aniorte-nic.net/trabaj_exclus_sida.htm
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society/
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salud.com.ar/shop/detallenot.asp?notid=7179
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