HIV/AIDS: A public health crisis?
Course Code: 3VOL1120
University Level: Three (20 Credits)
Prerequisites: Successful completion of levels 1 & 2.
Delivery Method: Distance learning, paper and/or online
Start Date: November 2010 (existing students only)
Course Duration: 1 Term
Further Study: Optional part of the Degree in Voluntary Sector Studies
Course Description:
This course provides a background to the HIV virus, how it is transmitted and treated, and the relationship between HIV and AIDS.
The first Unit introduces some of the broad public health issues raised by HIV/AIDS including problems of prevention, and the very strong and complex links between gender, poverty and susceptibility to HIV infection. The Unit goes on to explore the geographical spread of HIV/AIDS and the political and economic factors which have given rise to the huge inequality in outcomes for people living with HIV/AIDS
The second Unit seeks to situate approaches to HIV prevention in the UK, particularly, within a broader context of ideas and concepts about public health.
The third unit seeks to capture an understanding of the changing experience of people living with HIV and AIDS. The issues considered include living with the incurability of the infection, managing the risk of transmission, making decisions about when to start treatment, dealing with the side effects of treatments and the need to adhere to treatment.
The tragedy of HIV /AIDS unfolds in the final Unit as the vast majority of people living with the virus have no access to treatment, and hence face almost certain premature death. Yet the AIDS crisis is also an extraordinary story of struggle and transformation, of collective action, solidarity and compassion, and of challenge to accepted ideas. This unit explores the origins and types of AIDS activism, its development and characteristics, and some of the contradictions and difficulties the "AIDS movement" has distilled.
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