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The AIDS epidemic threatens the survival and well-being of people worldwide with its catastrophic physical, psychosocial, and neuropsychiatric consequences. In the United States alone, by October, 1989, AIDS-related illnesses had afflicted 112,241 Americans and killed 66,493 (Hilton, 1989). By the end of 1992, an estimated 365,000 American cases of AIDS will have been reported; cumulative deaths will total 263,000 (Mason, 1989). More Americans have died in the AIDS epidemic than died in the Vietnam War.
The major causative agent, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), spreads by specific behaviors that directly expose one person's bloodstream to the infected body fluids of another, such as blood, semen, or vaginal fluid. AIDS is not transmitted by mere casual contact or by exposure to saliva, tears, or sweat. Although individual high-risk behavior, and not membership in specific communities, transmits AIDS, certain populations in the U.S. suffer the brunt of this epidemic's impact. In 1987, 73% of Americans infected were gay and bisexual men, 16.6% were intravenous drug users, and 3.2% were hemophiliacs or other blood-product recipients (Allen and Curran, 1988).