Reducing Harm, Reducing HIV

Author(s)

Preston StachelekFollow

Major

Nursing

Advisor

Murphy, Sara, E

Advisor Department

Women's Studies

Date

5-2020

Keywords

HIV; AIDS; Harm Reduction; Rhode Island; HIV testing; HIV prevention

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Abstract

PRESTON STACHELEK (Nursing)

Reducing Harm, Reducing

HIV Sponsor: Sara Murphy (Honors Program)

Despite HIV’s existence for more than 40 years, this pandemic remains largely prevalent in the United States. The CDC estimates that approximately 1.2 million Americans are living with HIV, and nearly one in eight of those people do not know they are infected. Many organizations are working tirelessly to change this fact, including Rhode Island. Programs such as AIDS Care Ocean State’s Street Outreach and Syringe Exchange Program invite people to know their HIV status and provide the materials necessary to reduce transmission rates through actively going out into the community and handing out condoms, lubrication, and syringe exchange kits. They also offer onsite confidential HIV and Hepatitis C testing as well as case management.

As with any disease, prevention of further transmission is a key factor in eradication. With the most at risk populations of contracting HIV being men who have sex with men, sex workers, and intravenous drug users, prevention strategies have become more and more aimed at harm reduction. These strategies do not discourage any of these acts, but simply reduce the harm of further transmitting HIV and other associated infections. These types of approaches are often viewed as controversial due to their apparent endorsement of sex and drug use. This has led to funding decreases within the past couple years despite evidence of their necessity from the Rhode Island Department of Health.

The aim of this honors project is to highlight how beneficial these strategies are within our Rhode Island community through interviews with HIV experts in the state. I used the opinions and data gathered from interviews to draft a letter to 117 legislators asking for increased funding and support to Rhode Island organizations assisting potential HIV patients and those living with HIV. I have created a pamphlet that can be distributed to health centers throughout the state to educate patients on HIV services near them. These have been distributed to emergency departments, urgent care clinics, and Miriam Hospital’s free STD clinic as they tend to have the most encounters with populations at risk for contracting HIV.

Despite the countless lives that have been lost to HIV/AIDS from all sexes, ethnicities, and races, the disease remains largely stigmatized. It is the goal of this project to shed some light on this often-forgotten cause and hopefully, at the very least, educate some more Rhode Island residents and legislators on the topic.