senior honors project prospectus (excerpt)

I'm determined as of late...to look at the way individuals and communities respond to crises and face unfathomable odds. My senior honors project will hopefully reflect this in a way that is both useful and inspiring. Here's an excerpt fro my prospectus. I'll begin this project in the Spring.

Community Response to HIV/AIDS in Idaho
I.
The first case of HIV/AIDS in Idaho was reported in 1985. Idaho’s first Gay Pride Parade occurred in 1990. In 1994, Proposition One (an anti-gay initiative in Idaho) was defeated. This research delves deeper into the history surrounding these events to explore and analyze community involvement and response to HIV/AIDS in Idaho from 1985 to 2005. The purpose of this project is two-fold. First, the research offers a history of HIV/AIDS, told by those who have lived and/or documented it. Second, this project gauges the origins, existence, and efficacy of local community resources, response, and outreach programs. It will culminate in a web log or blog, which will serve to connect the history with updated and interactive links to existing resources, support systems, and statistics of HIV/AIDS in Idaho. It will also result in a paper, which will detail the process of compiling this history through interviews and archival research.
II.
This project is significant in that it documents the history of the AIDS crises in Idaho. This could easily invite future comparative analysis between the historical and political responses in Idaho with other states with lower rates of reported cases of HIV/AIDS. Ideally, it could also help community members, particularly those in need of such services, better understand what is available currently and how such services might be utilized or improved. This project holds personal significance in that I have been involved in health care since 1998. I have also been involved in and passionate about AIDS awareness, education and activism since 1989. I have written countless papers and even a play about AIDS, examining specifically the multiple ways AIDS has been historically debilitating and dehumanizing. Finally, this project holds professional significance for me as an aspiring academic. Health care as a human right is still a heavily debated issue, particularly with regard to HIV/AIDS treatment. The national history of the AIDS crisis and the current international struggle with soaring infection rates in younger and younger people shows however, that there is a place for and need of integrating education/awareness with analysis of the efficacy of existing programs and resources. It is my hope that this research can help to illustrate why access to quality health care is and should be a human right. To this end, I intend to build upon the connections made between socio-economics, race, gender and access to health care, eloquently and passionately described by Dr. Paul Farmer, in his book, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor.

III.
I did not find any books or scholarly articles specifically addressing the history of or community response to the AIDS crisis in Idaho. There is, however, ample writing on the relationship between socio-economics, health care and the human rights of those with HIV/AIDS. Proponents advocate a rights-based approach to health care, which would assure every person has access to quality medical care and specifically, to the resources needed to maintain health. Opponents quickly label this unrealistic, idealistic and some even consider it, unjust. Richard D. Lamm argues, “Rights are adversarial and individual, where health policy has to balance both who is covered and what is covered for all citizens. We can and should provide basic healthcare to all citizens, but this should be done through the legislature, not the courts and it should be accomplished as a matter of good social policy, not by playing the trump of rights”1. Lamm focuses on limited resources and the differing ways in which health is even defined. He maintains that while governments should provide healthcare to citizens, they should do so not because it is a right but because it is good public policy.
Such an argument does not include any mention of those whose lives may go unaccounted for in such policy. Lamm does address this though, by stating, “We, in fact, limit healthcare in one of the cruelest ways that any nation can do so—by simply leaving people out of that system”2.
Historically, the AIDS crisis offered a prime example of how easily a government can choose to leave people out of legislative protection, out of housing protection, out of employment protection, out of, in fact, having any human rights at all. This is why entering this debate at a local level and grounding it in local response and outreach is so crucial. Idaho was not Washington, New York, or California. Idaho has been minimally impacted by the AIDS crisis compared to those states. However, according to the most recent statistics from aidsaction.org, in September 2004, Idaho’s drug assistance program for AIDS treatment was capped and had a waiting list of 34. There may be less “need” here due to the fact that a smaller percent of Idaho’s population is knowingly infected but there is obviously still need.
IV.
Being that this project has a two-part focus, I will approach it similarly. First, I plan to ground my research in the archives of the Diversity newsletter, the Idaho Statesman, Your Family, Friends and Neighbors or YFFN by focusing specifically on the reaction to AIDS/HIV within the history of the pride parade. Second, I intend to synthesize this archival research with interviews from those who participated in and/or organized the parade as well as various community responses and activist groups dealing specifically with HIV/AIDS in Idaho. I will use the blog I create to document and compile the results of this part of the research. When this is complete, I plan to compile a list of HIV/AIDS resources exclusive to Idaho and to compare their utilization of the national and state funding of HIV/AIDS programs and outreach. I hope to conduct interviews with local leaders to document their views on the efficacy of Idaho programs compared to other Western states and those existing nationally as well, which would give a human take on the statistics offered by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. My primary methodology will be compiling and presenting data attained through archival research, existing infection statistics, funding reports and personal interviews.