Aids And The Ecology Of Poverty

"Why does AIDS policy ignore much of what is known about epidemics and why they spread? HIV/AIDS flourishes where people are dying of myriad other diseases that are almost unknown among affluent populations. AIDS and the Ecology of Poverty draws on conventional epidemiology, which recognizes that people who are malnourished, burdened with parasites and infectious diseases, and lacking access to medical care are vulnerable to other diseases, regardless of whether they are transmitted by air, water, food, or sexual contact. HIV/AIDS is no exception. This book delivers a telling critique of the behavioral explanation of epidemic AIDS and the stereotypes that lie beneath it. It also shows how the methodologies applied in recent epidemiology and health economics are based on a one-risk-fits-all model that ignores the greater vulnerability of poor people and gives rise to narrow, shortsighted, and dead-end policies." "Eileen Stillwaggon combines the insights of economics and biology to explain the epidemic spread of HIV/AIDS in poor populations in developing and transition countries. Drawing on a wealth of scientific evidence, the author demonstrates that the HIV/AIDS epidemic cannot be stopped in isolation. She offers pragmatic solutions to economic, social, and health problems that beset poor populations and contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS. The message of this book is optimistic because the solutions to almost all of the cofactor conditions and infections that promote HIV are already known, and the institutions that make those solutions available to poor people already exist."--BOOK JACKET.

Eileen Stillwaggon is Associate Professor of Economics at Gettysburg College. Her research includes work in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Argentina, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Lithuania, and on the Ute Reservation in Utah.