An Agentic Familiarity: The Context of HIV/AIDS and Sexual Orientation for Older Canadians during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper examines how experiences with a previous pandemic, particularly HIV/AIDS, may have informed approaches to COVID-19, with a focus on sexual orientation. Method: The sample was drawn from an online survey of Canadians 55+ conducted in 2020, comprising 1143 persons (mean age = 67; 88 gay or...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Healthcare (Basel) 2023-10, Vol.11 (21), p.2869
Main Authors: de Vries, Brian, Gutman, Gloria, Beringer, Robert, Gill, Paneet, Karbakhsh, Mojgan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome
AIDS
Beliefs, opinions and attitudes
bisexual
Canada
Canadians
COVID-19
Demographic aspects
Epidemics
future planning
gay
Health aspects
HIV
HIV infection
HIV/AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus
Influence
Pandemics
Sexual orientation
sexual orientation (lesbian
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Summary:This paper examines how experiences with a previous pandemic, particularly HIV/AIDS, may have informed approaches to COVID-19, with a focus on sexual orientation. Method: The sample was drawn from an online survey of Canadians 55+ conducted in 2020, comprising 1143 persons (mean age = 67; 88 gay or bisexual (GB) men, 65 lesbian or bisexual (LB) women, 818 heterosexual women, and 172 heterosexual men). Respondents reported if they, or someone close to them, “had been affected by” one or more pandemics and whether COVID-19 led them to “think more about their prior epidemic/pandemic experiences” and/or feel they “couldn’t handle it again”. Correlated items reflecting feeling “they have been here before”; “prepared for what is happening”; and “like they needed to act or do something” formed a scale named “agentic familiarity”. Results: About half of respondents reported thinking about their previous pandemic experience; about 5% reporting feeling like “they couldn’t handle it again” with no gender or sexual orientation differences. Higher agentic familiarity scores were found for GB men and for those with experience with HIV/AIDS vs. other pandemics. Discussion: These outcomes speak to resilience and growth experienced by LGBT (and especially GB) persons through shared stigma and trauma—with implications for current pandemic experiences and future actions, like advance care planning.
ISSN:2227-9032
2227-9032
DOI:10.3390/healthcare11212869