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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Rachel Frick Cardelle, MA, Consultant, 860 High Street, Stroudsburg, PA 18360, 57-476-9888, rcardelle@jhu.edu and Alberto Jose Frick Cardelle, PhD, MPH, Public Health Program, East Stroudsburg University, 200 Prospect Street, East Stroudsburg, PA 18301.
With services and resources for HIV/AIDS clients being so limited, a common eligibility criteria for accessing these services is an AIDS diagnosis. However there are large groups of individuals satisfying the AIDS case definition, who have not received an AIDS diagnosis. This paper analyzes health, socio-economic, and racial/ethnic and gender data as well as medical services information to demonstrate that multiple-diagnosed, homeless persons with HIV/AIDS often do not receive an appropriate AIDS diagnosis, and therefore fail to gain access to services to which they are entitled. Based on information collected through in-depth interviews with 261multiple-diagnosed, homeless persons with HIV/AIDS, the paper highlights this group's own thoughts and experiences regarding the accessing of medical and human services in Miami-Dade County. In order to verify housing status and health status respondents were recruited directly through community based providers, hospitals, health centers, outreach teams, and the women's jail. The results show that 73% of respondents remembered the results of their most recent T-cell counts. Of those, 35% reported T-cell counts under 200, however 61% of this group reported they had never received the AIDS diagnosis. In addition about 48% of the respondents who had an AIDS defining opportunistic infection also reported they had never received the AIDS diagnosis. The paper analyzes the data to identify the correlations between language, race, ethnicity, housing status and likelihood of receiving appropriate AIDS diagnosis. The results are critical if the HIV/AIDS providers are to offer better support and information to their clients and therefore assist them in becoming better advocates.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Access and Services
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.