Hiv, povertà e disuguaglianze

Abstract

HIV is a global scourge, but with polarization in poorest countries, mainly of sub-Saharan Africa. This observation is the basis of inclusion of HIV/AIDS in the group of “Infectious Diseases of Poverty”. However, recent studies have shown that it is not poverty that drives “directly” the HIV epidemic, but income inequality and gender, and other social, political and cultural mediators, acting influencing individual sexual behavior. In this paper, the authors considered the results of empirical (quantitative and statistical) studies of association between HIV and macro-social phenomena. At the same time, they emphasize the need to identify the mechanisms and processes, that is the real causes, of this link. They take into a particular consideration the sociological research lines addressed to open the black box of these causal mechanisms.