title: Hope: a new approach to understanding structural factors in HIV acquisition.
abstract: This paper presents the first empirical results of a long-term project exploring the use of hope as a concept summarising people's experience of the social, economic and cultural world they inhabit. The work has its roots in attempts to understand socio-economic aspects of HIV/AIDS epidemiology through recourse to the term 'structural drivers'. In this paper, we recognise the distinguished contribution made by that body of work but adopt a different theoretical approach, one based on the idea of emergent social properties. This is an idea derived from the Durkheim's notion of a 'social current'. One such emergent property is hope and its potential use and applicability as an epidemiological variable is described. The variable is measured using the Snyder scale developed by the late Rick Snyder for quite other purposes in the USA. We use data from the long-standing UK MRC/UVRI General Cohort Study in Uganda together with a smaller study of some fishing communities. The results show that the Snyder scale (1) does measure a real variable, (2) does mean something to Ugandan rural populations and (3) can be used to explore some known risk factors for HIV acquisition.
authors: a Department of Global Health and Development , London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine , London , UK.
authors: Tony
authors: T
authors: Barnett
authors: Janet
authors: J
authors: Seeley
authors: Jonathan
authors: J
authors: Levin
authors: Joseph
authors: J
authors: Katongole
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000635:transmission; D006679:HIV Seropositivity / Q000453:epidemiology; D065026:Hope; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D017533:Marital Status; D008875:Middle Aged; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012423:Rural Health; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D012747:Sexual Partners; D012923:Social Class; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014454:Uganda / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: HIV/AIDS; Uganda; hope; social science; structural drivers