Two OU researchers have seen the face of AIDS and HIV change in the past decade through their research with the disease and its effect on communities.
Since they started working together in 1992, David Barney, the principle investigator for the research and evaluation center, and Elizabeth Duran, project director for the center, have watched as HIV and AIDS, and their public perception have morphed. They have seen more people than before being diagnosed with the virus and the demographics of infected people change.
Barney and Duran are part of a team of six people at OU that received a national grant to research and evaluate how different communities respond to HIV and AIDS. The group is currently assisting American Indian, Alaska Native and Mexican border communities develop ways to better inform their populations.
HIV and AIDS have snuck up on some minority and rural communities, which may think the disease does not affect them. Rural communities may be 15 years behind in awareness of HIV and AIDS, Duran said.
"The most alarming issue is people are not being diagnosed until the last stages of the disease," she said. "The educational piece, I think, has gotten into the community, but people are having a difficult time with the stigma attached [to HIV and AIDS]."
The numbers of people with HIV and AIDS are increasing among women and minorities such as African Americans.
"AIDS is still thought of as a gay, white male's disease, when that is not the case at all," Barney said. "There has been a major change in AIDS over the years."
One of those changes is also in the way HIV and AIDS are treated medically. In the early '90s, good medications weren't available so the life expectancy was shorter than it is today.
"We've seen [AIDS] go from an acute disease to a chronic disease," Barney said.
One of their first projects was working with an American Indian center in Oklahoma City. Duran describes the early days marked by sudden diagnoses and quick deaths as "very scary."
"The agency had 39 infected people. In December, 10 of those had died," Duran said. "It was devastating to the agency staff."
One thing that has remained constant throughout the years, however, is the stigma attached to HIV and AIDS. Duran said some people are afraid to ask for an HIV test, let alone treatment. Research from surveys they conducted show some individuals fear retaliation including violence if they are identified as having the disease.
A study by faculty at the University of California at Davis that was published in the March 2002 issue of the American Journal of Public Health found the stigma remains as strong today as it was in the early '90s. Americans increasingly believe that people who got AIDS through sex or drug use deserve their illness, the study said. Twenty eight percent expressed this view in 1997, compared to 20 percent in 1991, according to the study.
The study also said in 1999 that 50 percent of the people surveyed believed AIDS could be spread by drinking from the same glass or being coughed upon by a person with AIDS.
"In general, it's an ongoing struggle, but I think we've made progress," Barney said. "There are days it gets discouraging but it is important to stick with it."
"It's a big operation, and we're very fortunate to get funding," Barney said.
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