RAND Corporation

About: RAND Corporation is a nonprofit organization based out in Santa Monica, California, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Health care & Population. The organization has 9602 authors who have published 18570 publications receiving 744658 citations.

HIV-Related Stigma among People with HIV and their Families: A Qualitative Analysis

Abstract: We examined the interconnectedness of stigma experiences in families living with HIV, from the perspective of multiple family members. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 families (33 parents with HIV, 27 children under age 18, 19 adult children, and 15 caregivers). Parents were drawn from the HIV Cost and Services Utilization Study, a representative sample of people in care for HIV in US. All of the families recounted experiences with stigma, including 100% of mothers, 88% of fathers, 52% of children, 79% of adult children, and 60% of caregivers. About 97% of families described discrimination fears, 79% of families experienced actual discrimination, and 10% of uninfected family members experienced stigma from association with the parent with HIV. Interpersonal discrimination seemed to stem from fears of contagion. Findings indicate a need for interventions to reduce HIV stigma in the general public and to help families cope with stigma.

Violence victimization after HIV infection in a US probability sample of adult patients in primary care.

Abstract: OBJECTIVES: This study estimated the proportion of HIV-infected adults who have been assaulted by a partner or someone important to them since their HIV diagnosis and the extent to which they reported HIV-seropositive status as a cause of the violence. METHODS: Study participants were from a nationally representative probability sample of 2864 HIV-infected adults who were receiving medical care and were enrolled in the HIV Costs and Service Utilization Study. All interviews (91% in person, 9% by telephone) were conducted with computer-assisted personal interviewing instruments. Interviews began in January 1996 and ended 15 months later. RESULTS: Overall, 20.5% of the women, 11.5% of the men who reported having sex with men, and 7.5% of the heterosexual men reported physical harm since diagnosis, of whom nearly half reported HIV-seropositive status as a cause of violent episodes. CONCLUSIONS: HIV-related care is an appropriate setting for routine assessment of violence. Programs to cross-train staff in antiviolence agencies and HIV care facilities need to be developed for men and women with HIV infection. Language: en

The S-1, S Inventory Policy Under Compound Poisson Demand

Abstract: This paper derives the simple analytic solution to the special but important inventory problem in which the optimal policy is to reorder whenever units are demanded. The demand distribution can be any compound Poisson; the resupply distribution is arbitrary. Both the backorder case and the lost sales case are solved by generalizing a queueing theorem due to Palm. The steady state probabilities for the number of units in resupply or repair completely describe the item's long term behavior, and are simply the normalized values of the compound Poisson demand distribution based on the mean of the resupply distribution but not on the distribution itself. Knowledge of these state probabilities enables us to compute several measures of item supply performance as a function of the spare stock, s. Traditional inventory analysis can then be applied to minimize total cost based on estimates of holding cost and supply performance cost. The appendices contain a description of the algorithm and the computer program for calculating stuttering Poisson state probabilities and the measures of effectiveness for the backorder case. Numerical illustrations are also provided.

Underdiagnosis of depression in HIV: who are we missing?

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To determine the sociodemographic and service delivery correlates of depression underdiagnosis in HIV.