World AIDS Day 2011: Public Perceptions of HIV

Public Sector

To mark World AIDS Day, on behalf of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Ipsos asked the British public what they think of the problem of HIV in developing countries today.

 

To mark World AIDS Day 2011, on behalf of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, we asked the British public what they think of the problem of HIV in developing countries today. 

Main findings

  • Four in ten think the problem of HIV/AIDS in developing countries has stayed the same over the last few years (39%) and a third think it has got worse (34%). 
  • People are slightly more optimistic about the future though, with 26% saying it will get better in the next few years, compared with 18% who say it has got better over the last few years. 
  • The British public do not think that most HIV positive people in developing countries can access treatment (only 28% think they can). 
  • They are unclear about whether the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV exists (41% think there are effective ways of preventing the transmission of HIV from mother to child, compared with 47% who think there are not). 
  • There is strong support for HIV positive women having the right to have children born free of HIV (with 76% agreeing with this). But a majority think that most HIV positive women in developing countries cannot access treatment to enable this (63%). 
  • The majority of people are keen for the UK government to give aid to help women in developing countries give birth to children born free of HIV (60%) and think it is important to maintain overall spending on HIV programmes overseas (73%). 
  • In general though, the public are not particularly interested in hearing more about HIV in developing countries (45% say they are not interested).

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Technical Note

Ipsos interviewed a representative quota sample of 1004 adults in Great Britain aged 15 and over. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in-home between 4th and 10th November 2011. Data are weighted to the known population profile of Great Britain (aged 15 and over).

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