Describes the involvement of churches and other faith-based organizations (FBOs) in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. The authors describe the range of FBO activities and discuss the advantages and challenges to such involvement and possible ways that FBOs can enhance their efforts, both independently and in collaboration with other organizations, such as government ministries of health.

Europe's "Black Death" contributed to the rise of nation states, mercantile economies, and even the Reformation. Will the AIDS epidemic have similar dramatic effects on the social and political landscape of the twenty-first century? This readable volume looks at the impact of AIDS since its emergence and suggests its effects in the next decade, when a million or more Americans will likely die of the disease. The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States addresses some of the most sensitive and controversial issues in the public debate over AIDS. This landmark book explores how AIDS has affected fundamental policies and practices in our major institutions, examining: How America's major religious organizations have dealt with sometimes conflicting values: the imperative of care for the sick versus traditional views of homosexuality and drug use. Hotly debated public health measures, such as HIV antibody testing and screening, tracing of sexual contacts, and quarantine. The potential risk of HIV infection to and from health care workers. How AIDS activists have brought about major change in the way new drugs are brought to the marketplace. The impact of AIDS on community-based organizations, from volunteers caring for individuals to the highly political ACT-UP organization. Coping with HIV infection in prisons. Two case studies shed light on HIV and the family relationship. One reports on some efforts to gain legal recognition for nonmarital relationships, and the other examines foster care programs for newborns with the HIV virus. A case study of New York City details how selected institutions interact to give what may be a picture of AIDS in the future. This clear and comprehensive presentation will be of interest to anyone concerned about AIDS and its impact on the country: health professionals, sociologists, psychologists, advocates for at-risk populations, and interested individuals.

This book is a collection of papers reflecting the latest advances in geographic research on health, disease, and well-being. It spans a wide range of topics, theoretical perspectives, and methodologies - including anti-racism, post-colonialism, spatial statistics, spatiotemporal modeling, political ecology, and social network analysis. Health issues in various regions of the world are addressed by interdisciplinary authors, who include scholars from epidemiology, medicine, public health, demography, and community studies. The book covers the major themes in this field such as health inequalities; environmental health; spatial analysis and modeling of disease; health care provision, access, and utilization; health and wellbeing; and global/transnational health and health issues in the global south. There is also a specially commissioned book review in addition to the chapters included in these six sections. Together, these chapters show cogently how geographic perspectives and methods can contribute in significant ways to advancing our understanding of the complex interactions between social and physical environments and health behaviors and outcomes. This book was published as a special issue of Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Among U. S. racial and ethnic minority populations, African American communities are the most disproportionately impacted and affected by HIV/AIDS (CDC, 2009; CDC, 2008). The chapters in this volume seek to explore factors that contribute to this disparity as well as methods for intervening and positively impacting the e- demic in the U. S. The book is divided into two sections. The first section includes chapters that explore specific contextual and structural factors related to HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention in African Americans. The second section is composed of chapters that address the latest in intervention strategies, including best-evidence and promising-evidence based behavioral interventions, program evaluation, cost effectiveness analyses and HIV testing and counseling. As background for the book, the Introduction provides a summary of the context and importance of other infectious disease rates, (i. e. , sexually transmitted diseases [STDs] and tubercu- sis), to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in African Americans and a brief introductory discussion on the major contextual factors related to the acquisition and transmission of STDs/HIV. Contextual Chapters Johnson & Dean author the first chapter in this section, which discusses the history and epidemiology of HIV/AIDS among African Americans. Specifically, this ch- ter provides a definition for and description of the US surveillance systems used to track HIV/AIDS and presents data on HIV or AIDS cases diagnosed between 2002 and 2006 and reported to CDC as of June 30, 2007.

In November 2007, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) published data showing that HIV prevalence has stabilized, even though the number of people living with HIV continues to rise. The following year, a joint UNAIDS, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and WHO report announced that 3 million people living with HIV were accessing antiretroviral therapy, an unprecedented increase of 1 million from the previous year and a 10-fold increase from five years earlier.