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Qualitative Health Research
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The Ineffable Disease: Exploring Young People's Discourses About HIV/AIDS in Alberta, Canada

Guendalina Graffigna

University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Kärin Olson

University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

The ongoing epidemic of HIV/AIDS in Western societies (in particular in North America), where most of the population knows about the disease and how it is transmitted, suggests that providing information is not enough to change unsafe conduct. More complex psychosocial processes, mainly still unexplored, seem to underlie the translation of health knowledge about the disease and the infection into safe practices. In this article we explore the discourse of young people in Alberta about HIV/AIDS and discuss ways in which this information might be used to shape preventive strategies. We conducted eight focus groups with young people 18 to 25 years of age living in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and analyzed the data using psychosocial discourse analysis. The results confirm the role of young people's interpersonal exchanges in determining HIV/AIDS preventive conduct and show the importance of social discourses about HIV/AIDS in mediating the impact of preventive campaigns on young people's attitudes and beliefs.

Key Words: discourse analysis • focus groups • health promotion • HIV/AIDS • prevention • youth

This version was published on June 1, 2009

Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 19, No. 6, 790-801 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1049732309335393
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