Baseline Study about Basic Facts on HIV/AIDS

Abstract

AIDS education is important, especially for young generation; and school is the most important means of reaching out to them. This also applies to the recovering alcoholics and drug users who had been correlated with lifetime tendency towards high risk sexual behaviors. It is easy to think that AIDS is only meant to be worried by drug users, the LGBT community, or people having a lot of sexual partners. This kind of thinking is wrong, and to be able to protect themselves, one needs to know the facts about HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and know how to avoid becoming infected. The present baseline study on HIV/AIDS has targeted all ages, sexually active adults, recovering alcoholics and drug users and also young people. Hence, the population for the study was taken from the following three sections of people: school students; college students; and recovering alcoholics and drug users. Other than the three sections of people mentioned above, awareness programs on HIV/AIDS had been conducted and formal sessions were carried out with community leaders of Mawlai area, women’s group of Thangsning area, injected drug users of Voluntary Health Association of Meghalaya, youth organizations of 7th Mile area and NCC cadets. The specific objective of the study is to comprehend the level of general awareness of the population about HIV/AIDS. The scope for the study is to assess the knowledge of the people on HIV/AIDS, to inform people how to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS by abstaining from high risk behavior, to counter people’s misconception and misunderstanding of the disease through discussions and formal sessions. The study would help to take up and work upon HIV/AIDS issues in Meghalaya. The findings of the study are varied like 84% of the respondents said that they have heard of HIV/AIDS, 33% of the respondents received the information about HIV/AIDS from books and journals and that 74% of the respondents knew about HIV/AIDS routes of transmission. The study stresses importance on generation of awareness about HIV/AIDS should cover different stakeholders, e.g., community leaders, youth organizations, law enforcement officials and other professional groups like lawyers, media personnel, women’s groups are the significant ones.

Keywords: awareness, drug user, HIV/AIDS education, recovering alcoholics, young generation

Cite this Article

Joseph Pereira, Patricia Dsouza, Bryan Jones. Baseline Study about Basic Facts on HIV/AIDS. Research & Reviews: A Journal of Immunology. 2020; 10(1):
30–31p.