Women with HIV and their burden of caring

Abstract

It is argued that the survival time of women with AIDS is connected to these women's values and beliefs about health and AIDS, which in turn affect how they care for themselves and others. Moreover, their values and beliefs result from the interrelationship between economic conditions and cultural and social norms. Consequently, women's experience of HIV infection is affected by both their inferior role and status in society and the lack of acknowledgment of HIV and AIDS as women's health issues. This situation has the fatal consequence that women with AIDS have a shorter survival time than do men with AIDS.