Prevalence of measurement data on the impacts of HIV/AIDS among those aged 50 and older: comparative issues between long term survivors and the recently infected

James W. McNally, University of Michigan

Current research in HIV/AIDS has focused on two core issues of concern related to this disease process and its impacts on older populations. The first concern is that of the social and economic costs of aged parents caring for children and younger relatives suffering from this disease. The elderly who engage in this type of family support not only face the increased burden of care giving for these sick and dying family members but they also face the loss of the very family members they would often depend upon for care in their later years. Work by Knodel et al (2001, 2007) and others have clearly laid out the issues relevant to this topic and they have established a research framework that is increasingly employed by other researchers in this area. The research presented here addresses the second core issue, increasing our understanding of growing prevalence of late life exposure and contraction of HIV/AIDS among people aged 50 and older. This research identifies and measures two unique HIV/AIDS populations, those who were infected earlier and have aged with HIV and those who are recently infected. Both mortality tracks and the treatment issues differ significantly between these two groups and an effective understanding of the consequences of HIV/AIDS in later life requires a comparative examination of these groups.