Vol. 8, Issue 5 (2019)

Author(s):
Dolly Rani and Bharti Singh

Abstract:
HIV/AIDS, now at the beginning of its fourth decade, is pandemic and one of the most devastating diseases. It deprives families, communities and entire nations of people at their most productive ages. According to NACO, 36.7 million people were living with HIV and AIDS across the world at the end of 2015. India alone, with 2.1 million cases of HIV, has the third highest number of HIV affected persons in the world. HIV continues to profoundly affect women and girls across all regions. A rise in the infection of women with ignorance means an increase in the infection of infants born to them. This means greater impact of the disease on women and children in particular, and society as a whole. It is felt by the health workers and experts that only factual knowledge is the most powerful weapons to fight this problem and media based approach is very effective for imparting knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS. In this context, the author made a scientific attempt to judge the possession and use of various media, level of HIV/AIDS awareness and association between the level of HIV/AIDS awareness and possession & use of various media among rural women of Uttar Pradesh. It is concluded from the study that majority of the respondents had low level of possession and use of media. Data related to the level of awareness regarding HIV/AIDS reported that majority of the respondents had medium level of awareness and very low numbers of the respondent’s level of awareness regarding HIV/AIDS were high. There were significant association between the level of awareness and possession & use of various media.