Long-term survivors of the AIDS epidemic deal with a complicated and unique set of challenges. Matt Sharp chronicles those issues in a 24-page status report titled The Unintended Consequences of AIDS Survival.
Released to coincide with World AIDS Day, December 1, the report is available for download here; you can read an excerpt here.
In addition to looking at the health care and psychosocial needs of people with AIDS—for example, issues resulting from traumatic stress and unprocessed grief—the paper offers a distinctive historical look at the AIDS epidemic. It contextualizes survivor trauma and includes unique milestones and epidemiological data.
Unintended Consequences highlights a group of AIDS activists in San Francisco that, beginning in 2013, mobilized other survivors to raise awareness, gather information and fight for change in their lives. According to a press release on the report, those efforts can serve as a guide and inspiration to survivors in other communities.
Other goals of the report are to “further educate, mobilize, engage discussion and stir creation of new research, new interventions, policy recommendations, advocacy and programming across the country.”
Sharp is a long-term AIDS survivor and an HIV treatment activist who helped lead the Reunion Project town hall summits across the nation the past two years. The one-day summits gave long-term survivors a chance to share their stories and develop strategies for thriving in the future. Read the POZ Q&A with Sharp here.
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