HIV in elderly African-American Women



HIV in elderly African-American Women

Introduction

There is increasing concern of HIV infection spreading among the African American women aging 50 years or older. The elderly African American women represent the largest and fastest growing group to contract the HIV diseases as compared to other groups across United States of America. There is wide amount of literature have been written on HIV among elderly African American Women and the issue is debated on various medical and healthcare forums, despite there is no common consensus in explaining this alarming issue and little strategies have been focused to the reduce risks of HIV among elderly African American women (Lorenz et al, 2005). The number of cases of elderly African American women admitting in hospitals with cases of AIDS has been drastically increased up to 848% between time periods of 2004-2010. The elderly African American women in age group of 50 years and older are also indicating drastic figures of HIV cases as compared to other ethnicity groups, their younger counterparts and in comparison of elderly African American men. Several studies from recent literature have discussed several issues related with this devastating increase in HIV cases among those elderly women (Grov et al, 2010).

Overview

Most studies reported that lack of education and misconception and spirituality among elderly women have increased the barriers of prevention control among this ethnic group, which leads to increase in usage of unsafe and unhealthy practices leading to HIV infection. Most researchers claim that HIV among elderly African American women can be prevented through various prevention strategies and programs such as promoting prevention messages with collaboration of neighborhood health services, developing skills of healthy practices, usage of condoms and other negotiation skills among sexual partners, incorporation of multi-generational in-home programs and finally enhancing the empowerment and self-esteem among those elderly women in order to cope with this deadly disease called HIV. Further, several authors recommend the approach of psychology where healthcare professionals align their prevention strategies with existing techniques in African American culture and heritage which includes inclusion of family and community and also the culture of storytelling. Further, it is observed that African American women cases are prevailing higher in Washington D.C. as compared to five times higher than other states of states of United States (Cotton et al, 2006).

Discussion

Anatomy and Physiology

The anatomy, physiology and psychophysiology have seen growth in the past few years. History, women were considered as taboo to identify to get diagnosed for HIV/AIDS in African American groups. The elderly women were highly prone to remained undiagnosed due to these things combined with lack of support from family, society and economic support. Various researchers have conducted empirical studies on finding reasons that contribute to elderly African American women's increased vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. The researchers observed that elderly African American women are highly vulnerable to AIDS/HIV as compared to their younger counterparts and African American men (Emlet, 2006). There ratio of vulnerability of elder women and elder men in African American group shows ...