The Diffusion of AIDS and Social Deprivation SUMMER, 1992 in North Carolina

Abstract

[First Paragraph] The dominant public perception of AIDS in the United States is that it is a problem for persons living deviant, socially unacceptable lifestyles. Bombarded by television images and print media accounts of the AIDS epidemic among male homosexuals and intravenous drug users living in large cities, many Americans have concluded AIDS is a problem only for socially marginalized populations. An examination of the data, however, reveals that with the spatial diffusion of AIDS the risk of contracting the disease has spread out of earlier AIDS clusters into virtually all strata of American society. And, in fact, AIDS has already become a serious problem for the economically deprived.