Stigma

Hour 14: Stigma
HIV-related stigma affects everyone – gay and straight, HIV-positive and HIV-negative – but most people have no understanding of its ramifications. Sometimes people find it hard to recognise stigma or articulate their response to it. HIV-related stigma and discrimination remain among the biggest challenges impeding progress in responses to HIV around the world.

World AIDS Day Worldwide takes a global look at stigma relating to HIV and how it perpetuates the transference of the virus.

Having just completed a PhD on the subject of stigma, Lucy Stackpool-Moore discusses the different ways in which stigma affects both those living with HIV and the rest of society. Stigma, she says, is something that is abstract in its action but causes profound feelings, while discrimination is far more literal in its action and intention.

Alastair Hudson, the UK country coordinator for the HIV Stigma Index, joins the panel via Skype from London. The index is a research instrument that c