By Kambiz Shekdar, Ph.D.
Each person’s medical history is personal and private. At the same time, it’s always patients who charge the leading edge of medical innovation. What factors are at play when a person decides how public or private they will be about the medical challenges they face? My goal is to try to understand some of this when it comes to HIV/AIDS.
I’ve created a personal and probing survey for HIV+ gay men. As a gay man myself, I feel comfortable knowing I’m asking some relevant questions here. I’m also interested in investigating experiences of straight Black women, another group hard-hit by HIV/AIDS. In this case, I’m working with a colleague whose church is comprised predominantly of people from many parts of the African diaspora and has an active HIV/AIDS ministry that supports and educates people living with the disease. Together, we intend to gear a survey dedicated to experiences of Black women living with HIV/AIDS.
The link to my survey for HIV+ gay men is here; please help me share it among your friends via email and social media: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RFTcureaids.
By answering the questionnaire, you consent to our use of the responses you provide, but you do not consent to any use of your name or any other personal-identifying information. Your individual responses will not be disclosed, but the information gathered from your responses will be used to inform our insights and conclusions, which will be published.
Rockefeller University alumnus and biotech inventor Kambiz Shekdar, Ph.D., is the founder and president of Research Foundation to Cure AIDS. Contact Kambiz at kambiz.shekdar@rftca.org.
