Illness Narratives among Aging PLWHA in New York City

a MiCDA Pilot Project Description

Investigators: Mark Padilla, Haile Rhawa

Funding: Michigan Center on the Demography of Aging

This qualitative study will elicit illness narratives in thirty self-identified gay, bisexual and transgender New York City older adults who have been living with HIV/AIDS for twenty years or longer. Addressing critical substantive gaps in the existing public health and experiential research on gay, bisexual, and transgender PLWHA, this study will focus on the role of major social transformations and aging processes in the experience of living with HIV/AIDS, and will provide a dynamic and developmental perspective on aging with HIV in the post-AIDS era. This research is necessary for providing a more theoretically informed and grounded framework for understanding existing epidemiologic and behavioral trends that have been primarily addressed through decontextualized correlational studies. This project constitutes the preliminary phase of a larger ethnographic research project under development which will explore how the illness narratives of aging PLWHA illuminate social, economic, and racial disparities in HIV/AIDS among sexual minority men.