Key issues in HIV and AIDS
HIV and AIDS key issues guides provide in-depth coverage of current debates and issues. Click on the links below to find out more.
- Abstinence only versus broad based sexual health promotion
- Which approach is more effective in preventing HIV infection among young people and reducing teenage pregnancy: abstinence only or broad-based sexual health promotion? The debate on this issue has gained prominence following the US government's increased funding of abstinence only programmes for young people. However, despite the US federal government's 20-year support for abstinence-only-until-marriage programmes for American adolescents, there is no peer-reviewed research proving that these have had a positive impact on behaviour
- AIDS communication
- AIDS communication can address both issues that immediately impact on HIV and AIDS, such as a lack of knowledge of safer sex, and the driving causes of the epidemic, such as the gender relations obstructing safer sex practice. Much attention has been given to the importance of the social context of communication, including religious, economic and cultural factors. Practitioners are increasingly focusing on the creation of enabling AIDS communication environments through work with bodies such as the media and civil society organisations
- Harm Reduction
- The harm reduction approach emerged in the late 1980's as a response to the increasing HIV prevalence among injecting drug users (IDUs). The response features a "practitioners" solution to a potential public health epidemic of HIV and AIDS in drug using populations, and was widely endorsed as a good strategy by health professionals and IDUs alike
- Microbicides
- HIV prevention options currently focus on the ABC model (abstinence, be faithful, use condoms). However, these prevention methods are not always a possibility, especially for women: millions of women do not have the social or economic power to insist on condoms, fidelity or to abandon partnerships that put them at risk. While partner participation is required for condom use, microbicides would offer women a method that they can use on their own, without partner involvement, thus allowing them to take more control of their sexual health.
- National AIDS Commissions
- This key issues guide examines institutional and governance issues as they relate to National AIDS Commissions (NACs), including structures and functions. The guide is divided into a background section that covers the history of NACS and an issues section which looks at the problems currently faced by NACs.
- Nutrition, HIV and AIDS
- HIV and AIDS are associated with poor nutritional status and weight loss, and weight loss is an important predictor of death from AIDS. Nutrition may have an important role to play in slowing progression of the disease and in contributing to successful antiretroviral (ARV) therapy. Addressing impact on livelihoods and food security is another important aspect of interventions for HIV and AIDS, and nutrition
- Sexual and reproductive health
- One-fifth of global disease among women of reproductive age is associated with sexual and reproductive ill-health. Likewise HIV and AIDS indirectly accounts for many maternal deaths, and is the direct cause of death of countless individuals and their family members. Despite these linkages, resistance and limited funding, as well as lack of harmonisation between policy and programming, mean that approaches to HIV and AIDS, and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) continue to be predominantly separate
- Violence against women and HIV
- Violence against women plays a crucial and devastating role in increasing the risk to women of HIV infection. It is a key reason why women are more vulnerable to HIV infection than men. It is both a cause and a consequence of infection, and as such is a driving force behind the epidemic. The circumstances underlying the correlation between violence against women and HIV and AIDS are a complex weave of social, cultural, and biological conditions
- Vulnerability, HIV and AIDS
- As the AIDS epidemic has evolved, the need to understand responses in the context of broad development strategies has become clear. On the one hand, successful efforts to prevent the spread of infection and mitigate its impact depend on a variety of social, economic and institutional factors. On the other hand, the AIDS epidemic strongly affects efforts to reduce poverty and reduce the impact of non AIDS-related shocks. This key issues guide aims to stimulate debate and encourage dialogue between development and HIV and AIDS
