Elderly men and the HIV in the field of Collective Health: vulnerabilities and challenges in the fourth decade of the epidemic

Abstract

This article analyzes the vulnerabilities to STD/HIV in elderly men, in the perspective of gender/generation, identifying lacks and ways to strengthen the programmatic actions for primary and secondary preventions of the Brazilian public health system (Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS). A descriptive and exploratory study was carried out, based on a not systematic review of the published articles of the SCIELO basis, after 2005, and on the consultation to the published policies, management documents and acts of the federal government after 2006. The findings showed the inductive role of the theme HIV in the domestic and international scientific production of the Public/Collective Health; the increase of the incidence of notified cases in the country of HIV in the population of 50 years or more, especially in men; the importance of the recognition of vulnerabilities of the elderly in the infection of HIV associated with the low perception of risk, with the unfamiliarity and limited use of preventive methods, with the late diagnosis and treatment of seropositives and with the processes of stigmatization, anchored on the double prejudice: aging and seropositivity to HIV. The conclusion of the study was that the health managers, in partnership with civil society and universities, should improve their efforts to demystify the invisibility and the vulnerabilities of the elderly population, improving the programmatic actions in the perspective of an active aging.