6th International AIDS Conference San Francisco, California, USA — June 20-23, 1990

Int Conf AIDS 1990 Jun 20-23; 6:337 (abstract no. Th.D.847)
Fishback L, Guthrie A, Lewin L, Needleman J, Barnow B; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, U.S. Public Health Service, Washington, D.C., USA

OBJECTIVE: To develop an analytic approach to quantify the costs to society of HIV-related discrimination and then to apply the approach to estimate, where possible, costs of HIV-related discrimination in the United States and the distribution of those costs.

METHODS: An analytic framework was developed for estimating the costs of HIV-related disease in seven different areas: housing, employment, education, health care, violence and crime, public accommodations, and health insurance. This framework was applied to data on total reported cases from areas where an active discrimination unit exists and, where possible, national estimates were made.

RESULTS: The project defined discrimination broadly in order to capture the full range of possible effects. Because of the number of assumptions necessary to estimate quantifiable costs, we developed a range of cost estimates by itemizing specific types of discrimination, the parties involved, and the consequences of the acts. We then estimated the costs of an act of discrimination, estimated its frequency of occurrence, and then applied the frequency to the costs to yield total estimates.

CONCLUSION: While the ranges in the cost estimates were wide, we did observe that HIV-related discrimination often results in the transfer of costs from the private sector to the public sector, such as when loss of work leads to the need for public housing or health care.

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ThD847

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