While much is made of the medical transformation of HIV/AIDS from an inevitable death sentence to a chronic illness, little attention has been given to the new economic concerns that have resulted from this change. My research examines how HIV-positive women navigate monetary needs once diagnosed with the disease. The goal of this work is to reveal the relationship between economic strategies and health management in order to determine what arrays of social support and financial assistance from public, private, and non-profit sources provide the stability necessary to allow women to focus on improving their health following an HIV diagnosis.
My research team and I recruited HIV-positive women from various ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds to participate in this research. In their own words during interviews and through our systematic observation, the project seeks to illuminate how being HIV positive shapes the economic and social contours of women’s lives.
In addition to women living with HIV, we are also studying AIDS service providers to examine how being connected to these institutions can be a crucial step for the economic and social survival of women living with HIV/AIDS.
Visit this website and the HHR Study website to see the latest findings from the study. I share my research through presentations for both academic and lay audiences, scholarly and popular press articles, and a book that I am currently writing. My findings aim to be of interest to people living with HIV/AIDS; city, state, and federal government officials; service providers; and the general public.