Emerging future issues in HIV/AIDS Social Research

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Samuel R. Friedman, PhD, IAR, National Develpment & Research Institutes, 71 West 23d Street, 8th floor, New York, NY 10010, 212 845 4467, friedman@ndri.org

Ongoing and likely-to-occur processes of social and ecological change, as well as foreseeable biomedical changes, pose the risk of evoking increased HIV transmission and/or of negatively affecting HIV prevention, care, and outcomes. Conversely, HIV-related variables such as morbidity, mortality, stigma, biomedical innovation and/or institutional collapse may affect society. This presentation will focus on research issues that will help us understand three processes as well as how we can intervene in them: (1) Processes through which wars, transitions and other upheavals sometimes affect HIV epidemics, prevention and care, and how we can predict and mitigate this; (2) How emerging technologies like vaccines, microbicides, adult circumcision or pre-exposure prophylaxis might affect behavioral prevention measures or political and economic support for prevention programs; and what social processes might effect both popular acceptance of such technologies and the organizational capacity to deliver them; (3) How government policies come to ignore or defy available evidence, and how scientific agencies or popular movements can intervene in this. The presentation will also include discussion of social, epidemiologic, policy and biomedical research and action needs; and on how to mobilize finances and personnel to implement these.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

1. Discuss a number of social-biomedical- interactions and of ways in which such interactions can be managed to increase the likelihood of positive outcomes.
2. Understand several perspectives about what are some of the most important research and intervention issues concerning how long-term large scale and mid-scale socioeconomic and ecological change affects AIDS epidemics.
3. Discuss ways in which emerging biomedical interventions may create social impacts that create HIV-related problems.
4. Think about how participants with influence over students, policy, research funding, or journals can help mobilize the research, knowledge, will and resources to meet these changes.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation

Emerging Future Issues in HIV/AIDS Social Research

The 134th Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 4-8, 2006) of APHA