“We are becoming older women and then we have two stigmas”: voicing women’s biopsychosocial health issues as they age with HIV

ABSTRACT

In April 2019, nine older women (age 50+) living with HIV in Palm Springs, California, participated in a 90-minute focus group to identify their major health issues, strengths, and HIV and aging-related health priorities. Using the rigorous and accelerated data reduction (RADaR) technique, we identified four major themes: (1) mental health, (2) HIV comorbidities, (3) social determinants of health, and (4) resiliencies. These results reinforce the need to conduct additional research focused on women aging with HIV, an understudied population that requires more effective, tailored interventions to promote better quality of life and healthy aging.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• health priorities
• HIV

Acknowledgments

We thank the participants for their courage and time, and the community advisory board for help recruiting participants. Thanks also to the Desert AIDS Project, who hosted the focus group, and Andrea Polonijo for editorial assistance on the manuscript. Lastly, we acknowledge support from the following programs: the Mentoring Summer Research Internship Program and University of California Leadership Excellence through Advanced Degrees. The Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (4367-RUOC) funded the study activities. The funding agency had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute [4367-RUOC].