The impact and relevance of HIV as a global health crisis is undeniable. HIV affects millions of people around the world, so it’s a very interesting and complex topic to explore in an essay. HIV affects people from all walks of life and communities, so it’s a significant issue. As such, it’s very important to treat it with respect and understand its impact going into your essay on HIV.
It’s equally important to learn about the stigma surrounding HIV patients and how things have changed. A lot of lessons have been learned and things are not as dire as they used to be for people with HIV, but there’s still discrimination and they still face a variety of difficulties worth shedding light on.
HIV is a lot more nuanced than people think when they only have a surface-level understanding of it, so it’s not just about public health. This is an infection that affects people’s lives beyond their health, so you can discuss it from many different perspectives. Including biological, historical, or societal perspectives.
Your arguments and opinions are only as good as the information they’re based on, so choose your sources carefully. Also, it’s a great idea to leverage real stories of people living with HIV. They offer valuable insights and they can help your reader connect at a more emotional level with the topic of HIV, which is important to foster empathy and encourage change at any level.
Your essay on HIV can be an opportunity to challenge the misconceptions about the infection and help your readers understand it like never before. Whether that’s by contrasting the way HIV was addressed in the 80s when it was first discovered to the way it’s addressed today or focusing on a specific aspect, whether that’s the impact on the LGBTQ+ community, society as a whole, policies, etc.
Look at it this way, if you had HIV or a loved one was affected by it, what would you like your essay to offer? How can your essay help others understand what people with HIV go through on so many different levels?
Use essay examples on this page for inspiration, and start creating your own piece!