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A LOST OPPORTUNITY |
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While many adolescents delay or forego HIV testing, those who test positive often delay treatment for the disease. Growing evidence demonstrates that young people are less likely than adults to adhere to complex HIV drug regimens (50). Existing research has found rates of adherence for youth range from 27 percent to 41 percent (51). The low treatment adherence rate among HIV-positive youth represents an alarming lost opportunity: successful suppression of HIV with anti-retroviral therapy requires a high adherence rate, in excess of 90% of doses (52). But HIV-infected adolescents are not fully adhering to medical therapy. The consequence of non-adherence to medication not only negatively affects the patient’s prognosis, but also increases a threat of multi-drug resistant strains of HIV (53). The tendency of medical non-adherence in this population, as one practitioner suggested, is further augmented by the fact that youth are simply confused by what medications may entail (54). The concern in Chicago, then, is not whether existing HIV/AIDS services are accessible to homeless youth, but whether a population who fears being stigmatized by their own community perceives those services as accessible and willingly uses them to their full effect.
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