A Global Experience
The transmission of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) has become a devastating global epidemic. According to UNAIDS statistics, there are approximately 36.7 million people worldwide living with HIV. The Indian population has suffered traumatically from this epidemic; in fact, 2.1 million people in India are living with HIV.The ongoing HIV epidemic in India may be contributed to a variety factors, such as a lack of prevention and healthcare infrastructure, and a thriving red light district.
Corruption within the India caste system drives hundreds of women to willingly sell their bodies and jeopardize their health. The laws in India promotes the lucrative commercial sex industry, however, such laws fail to protect the health of sex workers. Female sex workers are at a higher risk of contracting HIV due to their infinite number of sexual partners and risky sexual behavior. Once a female sex worker has become infected with HIV she is likely to potentially infect her clients and cohabit partner if precaution is not taken.
I would like to assemble multiple focus groups to obtain a holistic view on India female sex workers. The focus groups will be divided into two categories: (1) HIV positive female sex workers and (2) HIV negative female workers. Each focus group will contain roughly thirty participants. Every participant will be given a short survey containing a series of questions such as: how likely are you to wear a condom with a male client, how likely are you to use a condom with cohabiting partner, how likely are to disclose your status with others, are you currently receiving treatment, etc. I’m intrigued to find out how many HIV positive female sex workers continue to have unprotected sex and why do continue such behavior.
Once the survey has been completed, I would then like to conduct an informational session pertaining to the practice of safe sex, in hopes of reducing the transmission of HIV among India population. Similar studies have been conducted in the United States, however, due to the illegal nature of exchanging sex for money researches often experience difficulties obtaining a decent sample size leading to inconclusive results.
The transmission of HIV has always been an interest of mine. My undergraduate coursework has allowed me to view HIV from a social and medical standpoint. HIV not only takes a toll on the host body, but it also affects the individual mental health and their relationship with their love ones. Once I have successfully completed medical school, I would like to research the molecular composition of HIV.
