Based on articles chosen from the sixth annual 'Social Aspects of AIDS' conference, this book focuses on up-to-date accounts of HIV/AIDS research and associated social/sexual issues.

Based on articles chosen from the sixth annual 'Social Aspects of AIDS' conference, this book focuses on up-to-date accounts of HIV/AIDS research and associated social/sexual issues.

This book brings together specially selected papers addressing themes discussed at the Eighth Conference on the Social Aspects of AIDS held in London in late 1995.

First published in 1994. This volume arises largely out of a meeting with the same title as part of efforts to disseminate the work of its AIDS Initiative. The meeting brought together over forty British, European and American researchers in the social and behavioural sciences, as well as those involved in policy, planning and evaluation, to discuss methodological aspects of social research in relation to HIV/AIDS. Of relevance to those seeking insight into the contribution that social research can make to the epidemic, this book is essential reading for all concerned with the social dimensions of health.

AIDS, Drugs and Prevention brings together a range of international contributions on the research, theory and practice of developing community-based HIV prevention. It aims to understand how individual actions to prevent HIV transmission are constrained and encouraged by situational and social context. Drawing on ethnographic and epidemiological research among populations of drug users, sex workers and gay men, it explores how future HIV prevention interventions can target changes at the level of the individual as well as at the level of the community and wider social environment. AIDS, Drugs and Prevention offers practical and theoretical insights into community-based health work in the time of AIDS. It provides invaluable reading for students, lecturers, researchers and practioners in health promotion, health policy, social work and medical sociology.

In developing HIV prevention, community-orientated approaches have emerged within statutory and voluntary sectors and from the communities themselves. This book considers the diverse approaches and problems for professional practice.

It is widely recognized that current HIV intervention models are falling short of their goals. What are the alternatives?To answer this question, New International Directions in HIV Prevention for Gay and Bisexual Men presents a collection of articles from European and American authors that rival dominant paradigms of HIV prevention. Researchers, practitioners, and community organizations will be challenged to examine current assumptions and to consider neglected aspects of risk behavior such as love, trust, and the dynamics of sexual intimacy. New International Directions in HIV Prevention for Gay and Bisexual Men explores models and theories that will help you develop more effective HIV prevention programs to better serve patients and clients.New International Directions in HIV Prevention for Gay and Bisexual Men offers you fresh perspectives on prevention work by examining risk behaviors in the interactional, communal, and social contexts in which they are practiced. You will receive alternative explanations and reasons for HIV risk that go beyond current approaches and that introduce possibilities for new intervention strategies. Written by experts in the field, the chapters in New International Directions in HIV Prevention for Gay and Bisexual Men will give you insight into new ideas and developments, including: placing a greater emphasis on improving successful risk management strategies as opposed to quantifying risk factors examining the meaning and context of sexual acts which occur in casual encounters or steady partnerships and incorporating their relevancy into prevention work considering the effects that cultural context and socially constructed meanings have on prevention work and incorporating individuals’values and feelings into prevention strategies focusing on more realistic goals of harm reduction that take sexual decision making into consideration as opposed to expecting abstinence relating the various aspects of sexual encounters--physical attraction, intimacy, reciprocity, and power--to reasons why men choose not to use condomsExamining how gay men can underestimate the risk of HIV in order to meet needs of intimacy, New International Directions in HIV Prevention for Gay and Bisexual Men will help you understand the symbolic dimension of sexual contact. The normal, everyday reasons for having sex without a condom are explored, questioning models which often characterize unprotected sex as being the result of low self-esteem, substance abuse, or some other psychological vulnerability. Presenting data from both qualitative and quantitative research conducted at group and individual levels, this book reveals the complexity of risk behavior, the richness of sexual experience, and the importance of respecting the unique context in which gay men live their sexual lives. New International Directions in HIV Prevention for Gay and Bisexual Men will help you understand this point of view, enabling you to provide patients and clients with more effective HIV prevention and risk management services.