Multiple impacts of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the aged in rural Uganda

This paper reports research conducted among the aged residents of a rural, Southwestern Ugandan village. It documents their knowledge of HIV/AIDS, their perceptions of their own risk of infection, and the multiple impacts of the current HIV/AIDS epidemic on their lives. Most older individuals have a sound understanding of the sexual transmission of HIV, and some consider themselves to be at risk of infection through having multiple sexual partners. They attempt to limit their children's exposure to HIV, but many of these children have left the village to live in urban areas of relatively high HIV prevalence. The loss of adult children deprives the aged of any support these children might have provided as their parents' capabilities declined with advancing age. Female-headed households were more affected in this way than were male-headed households. The AIDS epidemic has increased the number of burials taking place in the village, and their accumulated costs, both in time and money, and created new hardships for the aged, who also have to cope with grief that accompanies continuing deaths among their children and their contemporaries' children.