Giving Compass’ Take:
• A report at Grantmakers in Aging complies a collaborative section-by-section approach to improving policymaking and understanding surrounding HIV and aging care.
• How do HIV and aging care go hand-in-hand? What can you do to support further research on how to improve policy under a more collective lens?
• Read about how current HIV response services neglect members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Part of Grantmakers In Aging’s Moving Ahead Together initiative, supported by Gilead Sciences, this document offers a detailed framework of recommendations for strengthening the integration of HIV and aging care and services through increased understanding, more customized programs, closer cross-sector connection, and stronger policymaking. Three main sections. Focus Area #1: Complexities and Challenges, explores the broader social context, including stigma. Focus Area #2: Integrating and Improving Care and Services, emphasizes the need for whole-person care and examines medical care, mental and behavioral health care, and social and psychosocial support. Focus Area #3: The Way Forward, looks at policy and how to update it to reflect the graying of HIV.
Since HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) was first detected in 1981, it has caused the deaths of
more than 700,000 people in the United States - almost twice the number of Americans who died
in World War II. Today, the epidemic is approaching its 40th anniversary. About 1.2 million people
in the U.S. now live with HIV, but the diagnosis no longer represents the virtual death sentence it
once did. Thanks to advances in treatment, the ability to live for decades with HIV has become a
remarkable success story.