IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v57y2003i6p1091-1097.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Short report: Migration among persons living with HIV

Author

Listed:
  • Berk, Marc L.
  • Schur, Claudia L.
  • Dunbar, Jennifer L.
  • Bozzette, Sam
  • Shapiro, Martin

Abstract

Data from the first national probability sample of persons with HIV, the HIV Cost of Services and Utilization Survey (HCSUS), are used to examine migration patterns among persons with HIV/AIDS in the USA. Persons with serious illness may choose to relocate to receive better care or support. This migration has implications for the distribution of resources. This study describes the frequency and reasons that persons with HIV move to different communities. An analytic file of 3014 respondents was obtained from the first national probability sample of persons with HIV/AIDS, the HCSUS. A migration section of the baseline questionnaire questioned respondents on their residential history. Persons were defined as movers if they moved across state lines or to a non-contiguous county after knowing they were HIV positive but before the HCSUS baseline interview. Forty percent of movers said that their HIV status was a very important factor in their decision to move. Although earlier studies of limited generalizability found movement among the HIV population from urban to rural counties, this study found only eight percent of HIV migration was from urban to rural counties, just slightly more than the migration from rural to urban counties. In addition, the vast majority of people who were moving were not moving to return home. Major factors in the decision to move included being near caregivers and being in a community with shared needs and interests. Significant numbers of persons also moved to obtain care from a physician knowledgeable in HIV treatment or to get away from discrimination. Financial assistance and the availability of Medicaid also played a prominent role in many decisions to move. Persons with HIV/AIDS are more likely to move than non-infected persons in the general population. Moreover, they are almost twice as likely to be moving out-of-state. Persons with HIV who move are similar to persons with HIV who do not move on most demographic characteristics including age, region of the country, and income.

Suggested Citation

  • Berk, Marc L. & Schur, Claudia L. & Dunbar, Jennifer L. & Bozzette, Sam & Shapiro, Martin, 2003. "Short report: Migration among persons living with HIV," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(6), pages 1091-1097, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:57:y:2003:i:6:p:1091-1097
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(02)00487-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cassels, Susan & Cerezo, Alison & Reid, Sean C. & Rivera, David B. & Loustalot, Colin & Meltzer, Dan, 2023. "Geographic mobility and its impact on sexual health and ongoing HIV transmission among migrant latinx men who have sex with men," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    2. Coast, Ernestina, 2006. "Local understandings of, and responses to, HIV: Rural-urban migrants in Tanzania," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 1000-1010, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    HIV AIDS Migration Access USA;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:57:y:2003:i:6:p:1091-1097. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.