Taking care’ in the age of Aids

Older rural South Africans’ strategies for surviving the HIV epidemic

Bibliographic Data

ID15098447
AuthorsNicole Angotti (0000-0002-9206-5914, Department of Sociology, American University, Washington, DC, USA, corresponding author), A Mojola (0000-0002-2610-2625, University of Colorado Boulder), Enid Schatz (0000-0003-3963-2745, University of the Witwatersrand), Jill Williams (University of Colorado Boulder), Jill R Williams (University of the Witwatersrand), Francesc Xavier Gómez-Olivé (0000-0002-4876-0848, University of the Witwatersrand)
Year2018
Volume20
Issue3
Pages262-275
Publication date2018-03-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCulture Health & Sexuality (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-1058 • E-ISSN: 1464-5351
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13691058.2017.1340670
PMID28741983
OpenAlexW2737431266
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited44

Older adults have been largely overlooked in community studies of HIV in highly endemic African countries. In our rural study site in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, HIV prevalence among those aged 50 and older is 16.5%, suggesting that older adults are at risk of both acquiring and transmitting HIV. This paper utilises community-based focus-group interviews with older rural South African men and women to better understand the normative environment in which they come to understand and make decisions about their health as they age in an HIV endemic setting. We analyse the dimensions of an inductively emerging theme: ku ti hlayisa (to take care of yourself). For older adults, 'taking care' in an age of AIDS represented: (1) an individualised pathway to achieving old-age respectability through the taking up of responsibilities and behaviours that characterise being an older person, (2) a set of gendered norms and strategies for reducing one's HIV risk, and (3) a shared responsibility for attenuating the impact of the HIV epidemic in the local community. Findings reflect the individual, interdependent and communal ways in which older rural South Africans understand HIV risk and prevention, ways that also map onto current epidemiological thinking for improving HIV-related outcomes in high-prevalence settings

Economic growth · Family medicine · Focus group · Health care · Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV · Interdependence · Normative · Political science · Rural area · Sociology · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health · HIV/AIDS Impact and Responses · HIV/AIDS Research and Interventions · Medicine · Epidemiology · Gerontology

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