HIV stigma is damaging our community today…

…and at least one way it could serve a higher purpose

Published: November 21, 2014 in A&E / Life&Style, Featured Stories
Updated: November 20, 2014 at 5:09 pm
  
By: Lawrence Ferber

stig·ma — noun — a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.

Hearing the words “I’m HIV-positive” made Bryan (names and some details have been changed) freeze.
A 23-year-old graphic designer, Bryan had met a guy at a Manhattan gay club, a svelte 25-year-old tourist, Zach, with whom he danced, drank and laughed. Around 1 a.m., just before heading to Zach’s hotel for more private activities together, Zach disclosed his positive HIV status. His viral load was undetectable, successfully suppressed with a drug regimen to the point it was low to no risk for transmission, he was clear of other STDs and he packed an ample supply of condoms.
Bryan declined to go back with him, though, offering up a politely worded excuse rather than saying what he really thought: “I don’t sleep with HIV-positive guys.” Zach, however, had heard those words, or variations of the same, more than a few times since his diagnosis a couple of years ago, and he could see them clearly in Bryan’s green eyes. He felt like shit, judged, tainted, and while Zach wouldn’t lie and tell someone he was negative, he understood why so many others in his shoes have and do...

To read the full article @ QNotes.com, and you should, click here

Can Selfies in the Shower Fight HIV Stigma? Lather, Rinse, Snap, Repeat!

By Mathew Rodriguez From TheBody.com

November 24, 2014

If you're looking for HIV's answer to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which raised over US$100 million for the ALS Association, Jack Mackenroth just may have it: the HIV Shower Selfie Challenge. Mackenroth, a famous HIV-positive activist and prior contestant on Project Runway, has partnered with Moovz, a global gay social networking app, to launch the project. Playing to a culture that loves a good selfie, Mackenroth is urging everyone to fight HIV stigma by simply taking a special kind of selfie.

Jack Mackenroth

"I was inspired by the use of the word 'clean,' especially common in gay culture, to describe oneself as STI/STD free. Indirectly this implies that HIV-positive people are somehow 'dirty,'" says Mackenroth. "I thought a PG or PG-13 shower selfie or Vine video would be a fun way that everyone could easily show their support for finding a cure on social media by using the hashtag #weareALLclean when they post their photo with the link. They then nominate 3 other people to participate and hopefully donate to the project as well."

Encouraged by the amount raised by the ALS Association during its Ice Bucket Challenge, the goal of Mackenroth's selfie campaign is to raise US$1 million to stop the epidemic and help find a cure. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that there are currently 1.2 million people in the U.S. living with HIV and over 35 million people living with HIV around the world. The campaign will be ongoing indefinitely and all donations received will go to Housing Works, a nonprofit organization fighting on the front lines to end HIV and homelessness in New York and around the world. You can donate here.

"As someone who has been living with HIV for 25 years this is very personal to me," said Mackenroth. He added, "There is current urgency for funding as we have new treatments that maintain viral suppression and render HIV-positive individuals virtually non-transmissible. Those same treatments can be given to HIV-negative individuals and protect them from infection. Essentially we already have the tools to stop the epidemic from spreading. Exciting new research is bringing us closer to a real cure for AIDS every day."

Housing Works' President and CEO Charles King added, "My hope is that this campaign inspires conversation, action and a reinvigorated commitment to end AIDS."
The campaign will launch via Moovz, which has a history of high engagement with successful international LGBT social media campaigns. Mackenroth is no stranger to social campaigns -- or to working with Housing Works. His fundraising campaign for BRAKING AIDS Ride earlier this year raised eyebrows and blood pressures. He has enlisted a few "social media superstars" to get this latest campaign off the ground.

Chris Salvatore

Actor, model, singer and social media maven Chris Salvatore is helping spread the word about the campaign in Los Angeles in collaboration with Moovz, as well. "It's time to erase the stigma and unite as a global community. Regardless of your gender or sexual identity -- no matter what age, color, size or shape you are, you should be a part of this project! Let's all be one loud, united voice in support of awareness, education, treatment and research for a cure," said Salvatore. "And have fun with it. Be funny, sexy or silly. Who doesn't want to see people in the shower soaping up for a good cause?"
"I truly hope this campaign goes viral -- no pun intended," Mackenroth quipped.
The campaign is launching this year just prior to World AIDS Day. The hope is that there will be traction in the following weeks.
Do you want to get involved? Here's how:

1. Take a selfie or Vine video of yourself in the shower. No explicit nudity, please.
2. Post your photo now on Moovs and all social media platforms with the caption "Take HIV Shower Selfie Challenge raise $$ for AIDS Cure bit.ly/CUREAIDS #weareALLclean"
3. Challenge three or more other people to participate!
4. Donate! Please consider a small donation if you are able. Every penny counts!
5. On (or before) World AIDS Day, Monday, Dec. 1, please change all your social media profile pix to your shower selfie photo and spread the word!

Mathew Rodriguez is the community editor for TheBody.com and TheBodyPRO.com.
Follow Mathew on Twitter: @mathewrodriguez.

Copyright © 2014 Remedy Health Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

This article originally appeared on thebody.com, the online resource of The Body, an HIV/AIDS resource, on November 24, 2014. The full article can be found here.

This article really highlights the marriage of social media and social change that we have been working on in class. This particular example is very promising and I hope to find more published work regarding this. This is one of the best articles I have read concerning HIV discrimination and a plausible, effective solution.

Can twitter be a force against HIV discrimination?

A project analysing tweets alongside take-up of HIV services in Brazil show social media can inform public health

Taavi Erkkola in Geneva and Miguel Luengo-Oroz in New York

Wednesday 12 November 2014 19.00 EST

 Advertisers have seen the potential of social media for informing their work for years, but public health is only just looking into the potential for improving the impact of campaigns.
As part of UNAids’ Protect the Goal campaign to raise awareness of HIV and Aids during the World Cup in Rio, we explored whether tweets could be used to measure HIV-related stigma. We wanted to find out whether discrimination makes people less likely to access health services such as condoms, HIV tests and antiretrovirals. We captured about 8,000 tweets in Portuguese filtering all the public messages, with a taxonomy of keywords covering discrimination, HIV prevention and testing topics. A challenge for the project was to discover to what extent people tweet about personal issues. In this case we found that most of the tweets extracted were expressing discriminatory attitudes, some about HIV prevention, and very few were about testing: people do tweet about condoms, but few about getting an HIV test. We also compared tweets (positive and negative) in the cities where matches were taking place with the number of people who used extra health services that were put on for the World Cup (mobile testing stations and condom give-aways).

While the analysis is still underway, the project has triggered thoughts about how we could deliver real-time follow up information on health services and correct misconceptions through social media opinion leaders, for example on the transmission of HIV and effectiveness of treatment.

This approach can be used in other areas of public health. In 2013, a Unicef study in eastern Europe found that social media can be used to influence opinions around immunisation. The report recommended that governments and international agencies need to counter the anti-vaccination sentiment identified on social media with strong messaging.

And social media analysis can be used for more than understanding opinions and attitudes. There is also potential for understanding people’s unhealthy habits. For instance, it is possible to predict whether a person smokes cigarettes or drinks alcohol using a person’s record of “likes” on Facebook. Mapping rapidly changing trends at population-level is a promising opportunity to keep track of risky behaviours, such as those associated to non-communicable diseases.
There are numerous challenges to make social media data helpful in public health. We need to learn how to work with massive incomplete and biased data: social media is not a statistically representative sample of a population; the demographics of users are frequently unknown; not all posts are geo-referenced when they are published. It is also critical to follow strict privacy principles and never access data containing private personal information or communication content.
Adapting our decision-making processes to consider information flows coming from big data sources is not business as usual. Yet, we strongly believe that social media, and the data derived from it, can serve as a powerful tool and indicator for human rights and health.

Taavi Erkkola is senior adviser at UNAids & Miguel Luengo-Oroz is chief scientist at UN Global Pulse. Follow @UNGlobalPulse on Twitter. 

This article originally appeared in the US edition of The Guardian on Wednesday, November 12, 2014 and can be found at http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/nov/13/can-twitter-be-a-force-against-hiv-discrimination

INTERNATIONAL NEWS: Costa Rica introduces legislation to protect HIV+ individuals from workplace discrimination...It's great to see that countries abroad, even smaller ones like Costa Rica, are fighting discrimination. A short, but sweet article from the Tico Times!

New bill would protect HIV positive employees from workplace discrimination*

Zach Dyer

1 day ago

As World AIDS Day approaches on Dec. 1, the Legislative Assembly’s Human Rights Commission has started debating a bill that would reform Costa Rica’s HIV-AIDS law to protect HIV-positive people from workplace discrimination, among other proposed changes. Proponents, including Vice President Ana Helena Chacón, argued that the reform bill represents a shift toward greater concern for the human rights of those living with HIV-AIDS.
The bill aims to fortify education and prevention programs among vulnerable populations, including women, and eliminate all discrimination against people based on their HIV status. The bill would decriminalize the unknowing transmission of the infection to another person, and levy fines of between 40 to 80 days minimum wage to an employer for discriminating based on HIV status, other illnesses, sexual orientation, ethnicity or disability. Employees would also not have to disclose their HIV status to their employers.
“The stigma and discrimination that people with HIV face continues to be considerable in all regions of the world,” said United Nations Development Program representative Yoriko Yasukawa. “This demands  putting an end to the violation of human rights that has helped the spread of HIV,” she said.
Another provision of the bill aims to make prophylactics more accessible to the public, especially sex workers. Juan Manuel Cordero of the Ombudsman’s Office told The Tico Times that third party organizations would be allowed to collect condoms on behalf of vulnerable populations to distribute to them later during outreach and education efforts.
Chacón lashed out at religious conservatives for their efforts to block the distribution of prophylactics.
“We cannot permit that under any circumstance that any ideology come before human rights and universal access to health care,” the Second Vice President said to applause at Casa Presidencial on Tuesday.
There are approximately 9,800 people over the age of 15 living with HIV in Costa Rica, according to 2013 figures from ONUSIDA. The rate of HIV infection has been on the rise in recent years, climbing from 8.6 to 14.8 per 100,000 between 2002 and 2013. The Public Health Ministry estimates that there could be as many as 1,002 new cases of the virus during 2014.

*This article originally appeared in the Tico Times, 11/4/2014 and can be found using link

 http://www.ticotimes.net/2014/11/04/new-bill-would-protect-hiv-positive-employees-from-workplace-discrimination