Lincoln E. Moses - Böcker

The AIDS virus is spread by human behaviors enacted in a variety of social situations. In order to prevent further infection, we need to know more about these behaviors. This volume explores what is known about the number of people infected, risk-associated behaviors, facilitation of behavioral change, and barriers to more effective prevention efforts.

Expanding on the 1989 National Research Council volume AIDS, Sexual Behavior, and Intravenous Drug Use, this book reports on changing patterns in the distribution of cases and the results of intervention efforts under way. It focuses on two important subpopulations that are becoming more and more at risk: adolescents and women. The committee also reviews strategies to protect blood supplies and to improve the quality of surveys used in AIDS research. AIDS: The Second Decade updates trends in AIDS cases and HIV infection among the homosexual community, intravenous drug users, women, minorities, and other groups; presents an overview of a wide range of behavioral intervention strategies directed at specific groups; discusses discrimination against people with AIDS and HIV infection; and presents available data on the proportion of teenagers engaging in the behaviors that can transmit the virus and on female prostitutes and HIV infection.

This volume addresses the interface of two major national problems: the epidemic of HIV-AIDS and the widespread use of illegal injection drugs. Should communities have the option of giving drug users sterile needles or bleach for cleaning needs in order to reduce the spread of HIV? Does needle distribution worsen the drug problem, as opponents of such programs argue? Do they reduce the spread of other serious diseases, such as hepatitis? Do they result in more used needles being carelessly discarded in the community? The panel takes a critical look at the available data on needle exchange and bleach distribution programs, reaches conclusions about their efficacy, and offers concrete recommendations for public policy to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. The book includes current knowledge about the epidemiologies of HIV/AIDS and injection drug use; characteristics of needle exchange and bleach distribution programs and views on those programs from diverse community groups; and a discussion of laws designed to control possession of needles, their impact on needle sharing among injection drug users, and their implications for needle exchange programs.