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IU Kokomo professor's AIDSresearch garners international attention
March 19, 2003 | |||||
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KOKOMO, Ind.—Research that IU Kokomo professor Allen Anderson, Ph.D., conducted in China in 2001 has caught the attention of an international think tank. The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., which advises national leaders on governmental issues, has asked to consider Anderson’s findings about HIV/AIDS education for a larger report the Center will submit to the Chinese government. Anderson is assistant dean of the IU Kokomo School of Public and Environmental Affairs. During nine trips to China since 1990, Anderson has worked in consultation with the Chinese Foundation for the Prevention of STD and AIDS to study Chinese attitudes and practices surrounding HIV/AIDS. In August 2001, they jointly surveyed 149 health care workers in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, regarding beliefs about the transmission of HIV infection. Some 90 percent of those surveyed either knew little or made incorrect assumptions about how the disease spreads. He and his fellow researchers were “very surprised at the depth of [the respondents’] unawareness,” Anderson said. “And these were doctors and nurses we surveyed.” Many respondents feared they would contract HIV on the job and expressed reluctance to treat AIDS patients, according to Anderson “They said they would literally request a job transfer if they were assigned an AIDS patient.” The survey results were first printed in the February issue of the academic journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. Reporter Stephanie Riesenman summarized the journal article and quoted Anderson in a story published February 25 on the Reuters Health news service Web site (http://www.reutershealth.com). Even though several health workers surveyed had received previous HIV/AIDS education, according to the Risenman’s article, they still held the following misconceptions: • 34 percent believed that HIV could be passed through saliva. • 33 percent thought HIV is transmittable through mosquito bites. • 22 percent believed they could contract HIV from toilet seats. • 4 percent were convinced they could catch HIV by breathing the air in a patient’s room. “Only 27 percent thought accidental needle sticks—which can spread HIV—were a potential source for contracting the virus,” Riesenman wrote. “ ‘Both their high degree of concern about contracting HIV and their low level of understanding regarding how the virus is not transmitted may help explain why a sizable proportion of participants had little desire to care for HIV/AIDS patients,’ the researchers wrote.” Anderson will travel to Guangxi again this summer, to help his Chinese partners develop an educational module, addressing some of the health workers’ misconceptions and proper treatment for patients with HIV. “If it is a success, it might be used throughout the province,” he said. Anderson told Riesenman that the 40,560 documented HIV cases in China are probably a small fraction of actual infections. Chinese researchers “have not been able to do really broad testing outside of high risk populations—like prostitutes and drug users—so they’re estimating at least one million actual infections in the country,” said Anderson. Without better prevention policies and more health care workers willing to care for these patients, he added, China could see some 10 million HIV-infected citizens by 2010. In August 2002, Anderson and the Chinese Foundation for the Prevention of STD and AIDS produced a television game show that presented HIV/AIDS information to viewers in Shanxi Province. Located in north central China, the largely rural province has seen recent dramatic increases in the spread of HIV/AIDS. The researchers had originally planned to place articles about HIV/AIDS prevention and control in area newspapers, and then survey readers to see what they picked up from their reading. They changed their delivery system to a television program in the hopes of informing more people, Anderson said. On the show, eight teams of teenage students competed to answer questions about the disease. They were cheered on by an audience—“people brought in off the streets,” according to Anderson. Music and skits dramatizing people dealing with HIV diagnoses were interspersed with the quiz segments. Exactly what the show’s viewers learned and retained about HIV/AIDS will be analyzed over the next several months, Anderson said.
Anderson has received funding for four of his China research trips from the Indiana University President’s Council on International Programs. Grants-in-aid from IU Kokomo have also provided “crucial” support for his research, he said.
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