The Needs of AIDS-Infected Individuals in Rural China

Abstract

The purpose of this exploratory case study was to describe the needs and present the voices of 21 AIDS-infected individuals who contracted the disease through the selling of blood in rural China. Data sources included interviews, field notes, and letters. Three themes emerged: living in a vicious circle, awakening from the dead end, and escaping the vicious circle through education. Education emerged as an overarching theme and was identified as the catalyst that would either keep the families of those affected trapped in the vicious circle or rescue them from it. Findings are explained within the theoretical contexts of social capital, motivation theory, and Confucius's philosophy on education. The authors discuss implications for researchers, educators, relief workers, human service workers, policy makers, and human rights advocates. They conclude with suggestions for further study.

Youth-Driven HIV Prevention Programmes in South Africa: Social Capital, Empowerment and Conscientisation

“…Social capital is one of the theories for conceptualising communities offering the features believed to contribute to enabling health among its residents Downloaded by [] at 06:04 03 January 2015 (Bhattacharya, 2005;Blaxter, 2000;Campbell, 2000;Lu , Trout, Lu, & Creswell, 2005;Ziersch, 205). Although originally developed in terms of providing an understanding of economic and political outcomes, researchers have made strong arguments for the use of social capital in determining the health of communities (Islam, Merlo, Kawachi, Lindstrom, & Gertdtham, 2006).…”

Interpretation of Researcher Positionality in a Transnational COIL Project

“…Branda spread the positive recommendations of the COIL project to students in a manner that catered to the local students. Her help indeed effectively expanded the pool of participants (Adamson & Donovan, 2002;Crist & Escandón-Dominguez, 2003;Eide & Allen, 2005;Lu et al, 2005;Miles et al, 2018).…”

Stigma Against Children Affected by AIDS (SACAA): Psychometric Evaluation of a Brief Measurement Scale

“…We developed the initial item pool based on four sources: (1) the global literature on HIV-related stigma research [1,33,34], (2) the global literature on measurement of HIV stigma [32,35,36], (3) studies on the impact of HIV in China [37,38], and (4) our own field observations and qualitative research related to the psychosocial consequences for children experiencing parental loss due to HIV/AIDS [27,28,39]. Informed by the findings in these resources, the investigation team reached the consensus that the main manifestations of public stigma against children affected by AIDS are the loss of social status (''status loss'') and the results of being labeled (''labeling'') [6,40].…”