Meta Analytic Measurement of HIV/AIDS Awareness, Prevention and Accepting Attitude toward People Living with HIV/AIDS in the Seven States of North East India |
Authors: |
Dulumoni Das, Rupak Gupta |
Source: |
International Journal of Collaborative Research on Internal Medicine & Public, 2011; 3(12):868-878. |
Topic(s): |
HIV/AIDS
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Country: |
Asia
India
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Published: |
DEC 2011 |
Abstract: |
ABSTRACT
Background: The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to gather momentum in India, destroying
innocent lives and imperilling future generations. Controlling spread of HIV is critical. Ignoring
this will lead millions of Indians in grip of this pandemic. Despite valiant efforts by government
agencies and heritable groups, large cross-sections of Indian society still lack information about
the nature of the disease and how individuals can protect themselves against it. As a result, the
epidemic is spreading rapidly to the general population. The Northeast India is the eastern most
part of India with seven states viz. Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram,
Nagaland and Tripura.
Aim & Objective: This study examines the importance of awareness, prevention and accepting
attitude strategies for HIV/AIDS among women and men in the age group 15-49 in the seven
states of north eastern region of India.
Methods: Data has been taken from the records of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3;
2005-06) (www.nfhsindia.org) conducted under the stewardship of the Ministry of Health and
Family Welfare, Government of India, with the International Institute for Population Sciences,
Mumbai. The different categories for comparison are (1) Knowledge of HIV/AIDS among
women (2) Knowledge of HIV/AIDS among men (3) Prevention of HIV/AIDS among women
(4) Prevention of HIV/AIDS among men (5) Accepting attitude toward people living with
HIV/AIDS among women (6) Accepting attitude toward people living with HIV/AIDS among
men. A meta analytic model, introduced by Bhattacharjee and Gupta (2008), has been followed
by assigning weight as mean of the sub-category scores.
Results: Analyses reveal that Manipur (95%) is associated with the highest level of awareness,
prevention and accepting attitude of HIV/AIDS while Meghalaya having the lowest score (17%)
is not still fully aware of HIV/AIDS.
Conclusion: Findings highlight the need for integrated awareness and prevention programmes
that emphasise on the behavioural change toward the people living with HIV/AIDS which has
serious implication for both individual and society as a whole. Further investigations are required
to understand the reasons for the low level of awareness in most of the North Eastern states of India. |
Web: |
http://iomcworld.com/ijcrimph/files/v03-n12-03.pdf |
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