PRE-DEPARTURE

India as a country is massive, and its people are equally massive in their diversity. In terms of psychological research, India is a great region to study, particularly when studying sensitive subjects like HIV because of the incredibly conservative culture. My study focuses on the stigma surrounding and social support for HIV positive women. My research will explore such questions as, “Do these women get equal access to healthcare?” and “What are the social implications of being HIV positive versus HIV negative in India?” Do women diagnosed with HIV even seek medical advice, or are the burdens of such a diagnosis too heavy and debilitating? Apart from medical services, do these women receive psychological counseling and support for their condition? Do these women develop anxiety, depression, or suicidal ideation? Who is receiving HIV positive diagnoses: older women, younger women, or both? Such are the questions that plague me, and such will be the focus of my research as I study abroad. I plan to examine existing data at Mysore’s Public Health Research Institute (PHRI) and interview researchers in the field and HIV positive women themselves. Studying at PHRI will provide me the necessary means of conducting my research.

HIV in India is rampant, making it of particular interest to researchers interested in studying the virus. The country has the third largest epidemic of the retrovirus on the planet, which equates to roughly 2.1 million people battling HIV on a daily basis in the country (HIV and Aids in India, 2016). In 2015, almost 90% of new cases were driven by heterosexual sex, not homosexual sex as might be popularly believed. In all, HIV rates seem to be declining in the country—but this does not include sex-worker, drug-using, migrant-worker, or homosexual communities (HIV and Aids in India, 2016). Yet despite the general decline in the virus, fewer than half of the infected population are treated with anti-vitals, begging the question, “What keeps people, particularly women, from seeking healthcare?” Existing research paints a harrowing picture of the lives of HIV positive women. The Positive Women Network (PWN+), a group of All-Indian HIV positive women, works to create equal opportunities at happy and healthy lives for those affected by the retrovirus (Positive Women Network, 2015). The support group shares several of their members tragic stories, and a common denominator seems to exist among HIV positive women: women first get the virus from their husbands—often times in arranged marriages—and then pass the virus on to their children (Positive Women Network, 2015). Many times the women are unaware of their illness, which furthers their health risks and creates a complicated situation for the women and their families.

I cannot imagine the lives of the Indian women whose stories I read or of the millions of women whose stories I do not know. Living with a diagnosis of an illness that may ultimately kill you, or living with the burden of knowing that you passed the illness to your children, is arduous. But doing so with little to no access to medical, social, familial, or psychological support makes the process unimaginable. Essentially, I am interested in examining the psychological aspect of living with HIV in India. As my field of interest involves neuroscience and the brain’s power over emotion and behavior, I will focus on how these women cope with their diagnosis, their disease’s stigma, and their social support or lack thereof. If I could answer even one of the aforementioned questions posed in my work, I would be a step closer in understanding the HIV plague on Indian women. Psychological work aims to understand and ease the ailments of human beings, and such is the pivotal goal of my summer research.