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

 

 A great article, from Salon, highlighting the current events surrounding Ebola and the past (and very much present!) AIDS crisis. Definitely worth a read!

 Monday, Oct 27, 2014 03:45 PM EST

“History repeating itself”: AIDS activists slam Cuomo for “stigmatizing” Ebola quarantines

Advocates and public health experts cite troubling similarities between the AIDS crisis and Ebola panic 

Lindsay Abrams

Citing a “great sense of solidarity” with Ebola survivors and healthcare workers, a group of leading AIDS activists spoke out Monday afternoon against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Ebola quarantine policy, calling it a “dangerous and explosive” overreaction that is spreading “dangerously incorrect information” about how Ebola is spread. It’s a political reaction, they say, that will only contribute to “growing stigma and public panic” surrounding the outbreak. 

 To read the full article, click the link: http://www.salon.com/2014/10/27/history_repeating_itself_aids_activists_slam_cuomo_for_stigmatizing_ebola_quarantines/



 

This is why fighting stigma and discrimination is so important still...

Oops, Pat Robertson Did It Again

 

                               By: Tyler Curry*

                   October 26th, 2014

 

 

 

The famed American Evangelist and host of “The 700 Club” is known for sticking his foot in his mouth when it comes to gay issues, and he probably doesn’t care. He has a following of millions from around the globe, many who live in developing nations and look to the TV prophet for guidance and support. He has his audience, they are loyal, and they certainly do not consist of LGBT people. But when Robertson made an off-hand remark about the dangers of traveling to Kenya, he may have alienated a major part of his faithful following.
Last week, a viewer of Robertson’s TV show called in to get the host’s thoughts on whether a planned trip to Kenya was risky or not.

Robertson responded: “You might get AIDS in Kenya. The people have AIDS in Kenya. The towels could have AIDS.”

The Christian Broadcast Network, the company responsible for airing Robertson’s show, issued this statement shortly after these comments aired.

“Dr. Robertson misspoke about the possibility of getting AIDS through towels. CBN Quickly recognized the error and quickly removed the statement from the online archive. CBN recognizes the error and apologizes for any confusion.”

Although the CBN issued a correction to his statement, many Kenyans have taken to social media, demanding that Robertson issue a formal apology on his show. Several prominent voices in Kenya have also weighed in on Robertson’s comments. Mumbi Seraki, a popular radio host in Nairobi, is rallying his listeners to ask for an on-air apology. Former legislator and human rights lawyer, Gitobu Imanyara, understands that Robertson misspoke, but questions whether he is really sorry for the damage he has done, both to the international reputation of Kenya and for perpetuating stigmatic misinformation about HIV.

According to the CDC, a person can only be infected with HIV by having sex or sharing needles with another person who is HIV positive. The virus is spread through blood, semen, pre-seminal fluid, vaginal fluids and breast milk. These fluids must come into direct contact with mucous membranes or directly injected into the bloodstream. And regardless of what Robertson thinks, the virus cannot be spread through surfaces, such as towels.

It is unknown whether Robertson plans on publicly acknowledging his stigma-fueled snafu.

*Tyler Curry is Senior Editor, HIV Equal Online

http://hivequal.org/hiv-equal-online/oops-pat-robertson-did-it-again#.VE5_LQcIWNY.facebook