I will be discussing two articles that investigate HIV prevalence in adolescents. The pieces are titled, HIV Prevention in Adolescents and Young People in the Eastern and Southern African Region: A Review of Key Challenges Impeding Actions for an Effective Response and HIV, Gender, Race, Sexual Orientation, and Sex Work: A Qualitative Study of Intersectional Stigma Experienced by HIV-Positive Women in Ontario, Canada. The first piece was published in “The Open AIDS Journal” and the second in “PLoS Medicine”. Both articles establish and reiterate that while HIV rates of infection of decreasing internationally, HIV infection rates in adolescents are increasing. However, the authors choice of methodology varies.
I’ll began by discussing the first article. This piece specifically looks at HIV in the Eastern and Southern African Region (ESAR). The author begins by talking about how much HIV has been declining and how far the world has come since HIV was discovered. However, then she contrasts that point by saying that “37% of all new HIV infections in 2017” were attributed to young people (Govender et al. 2018). Then, the author lists her main points of emphasis: epidemiological patterns of HIV, young populations that require targeted HIV preventions, challenges associated with HIV prevention programming and research, and mitigating vulnerability and sustaining the HIV prevention response(Govender et al. 2018). She investigates prevalence of HIV in men and women through graphs and analysis. And lastly, she calls for more effective research to be done in the region in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals framework (reduce number of HIV infections by 75% by 2030) (Govender et al. 2018).
In contrast, the second piece specifically looks at HIV in young adolescent girls in Ontario, Canada. This piece emphasizes how intersectionality plays a major role in HIV infection. The author discussed how minorities and poorer groups in Ontario are disproportionately impacted by the disease (Logie et al. 2011). Racism and stigma also play major roles in the HIV prevalence among these communities. The author furthers their point by creating a diagram to represent the multifaceted influences associated with HIV infection amongst minority women in Ontario. Similar to the previous piece, the author mentions and emphasizes that women are significantly more likely to get HIV in patriarchal societies because they have little negotiating power (negotiating condom use) (Govender et al. 2018; Logie et al. 2011).
The two pieces vary in their approach to the topic. The first investigates how research should be improved in order to learn more about HIV in this population, while the second discusses the political and social implications of HIV in these populations through group participants. I believe both pieces will help me in my own research, as they complement each other well and reiterate my main point as well: that young girls are disproportionately impacted by HIV because of existing patriarchal systems.
Bibliography:
Govender, Kaymarlin et al. 2018. “HIV Prevention in Adolescents and Young People in Eastern and Southern Africa Region: A Review of Key Challenges Impeding Actions for an Effectiv Response.” The Open AIDS Journal (12): 53–67.
Logie, Carmen H., LLana James, Wangari Tharao, and Mona R. Loutfy. 2011. “HIV, Gender, Race, Sexual Orientation, and Sex Work: A Qualitative Study of Intersectional Stigma Experienced by HIV-Positive Women in Ontario, Canada.” PLoS Medicine 8(11).
Lauren — both of these articles are clearly relevant to your research, and you’ve done a good job identifying the central claim in each article. To build on that, though, it would be good to also identify specific research method elements for each. What specific research methodology does each employ? Given that these both appear to be neopositivist analysis, it would be good to go into some more detail, using some specific terms, to help further unpack these methodologies. What is the DV in each article? What are the key IV(s) and hypotheses tested? Being precise in identifying these elements of the methodology employed helps further contextualize the main claims and the different explanations that scholars offer for similar puzzles). Keep reading and researching with an eye to these things!