Who knows your HIV status? What HIV + patients and their network members know about each other

Gene A. Shelley, H. Russell Bernard, Peter Killworth, Eugene Johnsen, Christopher McCarty

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

46 Scopus citations

Abstract

This research reports on an analysis of personal network data collected from 70 HIV-positive HIV/AIDS patients (48 men, 22 women; 45 black, 25 white). Issues examined were the conditions surrounding the difficulty of knowing information about social network members, including knowledge of HIV status. The stigmatizing nature of AIDS resulted in selective knowledge regarding a person's HIV status (and other information) among their social network members. Informants' networks appeared smaller than those for other groups we have investigated, and this may be due to informant self-limiting, or alter rejection of HIV informant. These results will be useful in determining the amount of HIV + in the general population, and these methods could be applied to other hard-to-count populations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)189-217
Number of pages29
JournalSocial Networks
Volume17
Issue number3-4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1995
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Anthropology
  • Sociology and Political Science
  • General Social Sciences
  • General Psychology

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