AIDS at 30: Implications for Social Work Education

Abstract

This article reviews themes and changes in the teaching of HIV/AIDS content in social work programs over the first three decades of the epidemic. Social work education in the first decade of the epidemic was largely focused on helping clients in the death and dying process, while medical and pharmaceutical advancements in the mid-1990s drastically altered the roles of social work. As social work education prepares students to face the fourth decade of the AIDS epidemic, three areas of cross-curricular intersection are highlighted: HIV/AIDS as an issue of social, racial, and economic justice; the global AIDS epidemic in the context of international social work; and the social work response to HIV/AIDS in older adults.