AIDS: methodological problems in studying its prevention and spread

This paper outlines some problems in conducting AIDS research in developing countries, discusses the impact of the socio-cultural setting on study efforts, and emphasizes the need for adopting methodological approaches that are highly sensitive to the environment. The importance of seeing AIDS as a disease that affects humans not merely biologically, but also socially--in terms of their conceptions of sexual behavior and their belief systems of disease, illness and sickness--is considered. The potential of scientists to disregard this facet in the study of AIDS is stressed. The imperatives for interdisciplinary collaboration between the medical and social scientists are examined to argue that without combining research agendas, significant variables will be ignored in the search for ways to control AIDS. Special attention is given to the limitations of several methods that are employed by medical and social science researchers, including research designs, sampling, data collection and analysis, to suggest that with AIDS research these may be difficult to operationalize. The ethical implications of some of these are weighed. The interaction of economic and political conditions of the context with research activity is explored. Suggestions are given which take cognizance of the fact that it is human beings and Third World conditions, as well as the complexities of HIV and AIDS, that make AIDS research so problematic.