Research Paper on:
HIV and the Senior Citizen Population

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
age. Everyone merely assumes that HIV is contracted by young promiscuous individuals who are engaged in unsafe sex or are drug users. However, it appears as though the elderly population  actually maintains 10% or more of the infected population. One author notes that, "In areas with concentrated senior populations, such as Floridas Palm Beach County, infection rates in this age  group are as high as 15% (Speyer, 1994, cited in Puleo, 1996). When we consider under-reporting, missed diagnoses, and revision of HIV diagnostic criteria to include such diseases as Kaposis  sarcoma...these rates of new infection may be even higher" (Elmer, 2001; hivsfu.htm). This may well come as a surprise considering that people do not expect the elderly to engage in  sex, must less assume they are concerned with unsafe sex to any degree that they would contract the disease, and we certainly do not assume that they are drug users  of the intravenous sort. In the following paper we examine the elderly population that is rising in relationship to HIV infection HIV and the Aging First and foremost it  should be understood that the elderly who contract HIV are not of any particular socioeconomic group, nor are they primarily evident in any race or culture in the United States.  In all honesty it seems to be a problem with the poor as well as the middle class, white and black, male and female, straight and homosexual. In fact, it  seems that with the elderly this disease has truly shown its undiscriminating nature. With this basic information in hand we turn to a discussion of elderly individuals who have contracted  the disease. One of the most surprising types of cases is that which involves older women. With many older women we find that they are perhaps divorced or widowed. They