A little more than one percent of the total AIDS cases in the United States have occurred in children, but, alarmingly, the number is growing. Children, Adolescents, and AIDS is the report of the American Psychological Association task force on pediatric AIDS. It is the first study to address a wide range of medical, psychological, social, legal, and ethnical issues confronting young patients and their families.

 

Edited by Jeffrey M. Seibert and Roberta A. Olson, the book draws on the expertise of researchers, clinicians, and other professionals. Brian E. Novick opens with a medical overview of what is known about AIDS/HIV iinfection in children, written for nonspecialists. Then Seibert, Ana Garcia, Marcy Kaplan, and Anita Septimus discuss the needs of HIV-infected children, their families, and their communities that have been identified in model programs in Miami, Los Angeles, and New York City. Next, Patrick J. Mason and Roberta Olson consider the special problems of hemophiliac children with AIDS. Marsha B. Liss reviews the policies being developed by school systems toward HIV-infected children; and Sally E. Dodds, Marilyn Volker, and Helen Viviand focus on bringing the sensitive issues of sex and drugs into curricula aimed at educating students about the basic facts of AIDS and its prevention. Heather C. Huszti and Dale D. Chitwood assess prevention efforts directed to adolescents and women of child-bearing age. Finally, Joni N. Gray discusses the legal and ethical issues surrounding pediatric AIDS.

Jeffrey M. Seibert, formerly an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Miami School of Medicine and codirector of the Pediatric AIDS Psychosocial Project there, is currently on the staff of the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Tiburon, California. Roberta A. Olson is an associate professor of clinical psychology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

"A groundbreaker. Almost certain to be widely cited and to affect directions in—and funding for—research."—Gary Melton, president of Division 37 (Child, Youth and Family Services), American Psychological Association

"The first attempt I have seen to link medicine, public policy, law, and children's best interests in one volume. Very important."—Gerald P. Koocher, Harvard University and Children's Hospital, Boston