Protecting Childhood in the AIDS Pandemic: Finding Solutions that Work

Every year over a quarter of a million children die of AIDS. Another two million children currently live with HIV, most in sub-Saharan Africa. Millions more are affected when AIDS enters their families or their communities. Orphans are perhaps the most visible: 15 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS; 12 million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa.

The increasing burden of HIV/AIDS falls heavily on extended families who support HIV-infected family members, care for relatives who are sick and dying, and for children who are left behind. Adults who take on these caregiving burdens have less time for their own children, fewer financial resources, and often face greater difficulties meeting even basic needs. In communities severely affected by AIDS, traditional safety nets are often eroded by cumulative mortality: teachers are absent from school because of their own illness or that of family members, and basic health facilities can be overwhelmed by AIDS care needs, all of which leave children increasingly vulnerable. The impact is most severe in environments where government- and state-level support is weakest-where universal education, health care, and social welfare are either partially available or not available at all.

Protecting Childhood in the AIDS Pandemic will bring together lessons from global experts on what has worked and what would need to be done to transform the outcomes of children of all ages whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS. Examining which public policies and programs have worked best to meet the full range of children's needs, from medical care to social support and from infancy to adolescence, this is the volume for academics, social scientists, policymakers, and on-the-ground practitioners around the world.

Jody Heymann, MD, PhD, is the Founding Director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University. She led some of the earliest work on preventing post-natal HIV transmission, reducing HIV associated tuberculosis, and improving ways to get HIV treatment to low-income settings. An internationally renowned researcher on public policy and equity in 190 countries, Heymann's work has been featured widely in The New York Times, Washington Post,CNN, NPR, Financial Times, and Business Week, among other leading national and international media.

Lorraine Sherr, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and academic working in London with wide national and international research and policy experience. She has authored over 255 publications on the subject of HIV infection generally and families particularly. She has sat on the World Health Organization's Strategic Organizational committee and has been awarded a Churchill Fellowship for work on mothers and infants in HIV.

Rachel Kidman, PhD, is a Research Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University, where her research focuses on the development of appropriate social interventions to help protect the welfare of children affected by AIDS. She has conducted research on health and educational disparities and programs serving vulnerable children and their families in sub-Saharan Africa.