KEY WORDS, PHRASES & ACRONYMS*
* An acronym is a word or collection of letters that stand for something else. For example, see AIDS or APHA
AIDS = Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. AIDS is a clinical diagnosis that can only be given by a doctor. It occurs when someone has tested positive for HIV and has at least one opportunistic infection (an infection that the body cannot fight off because of a weakened immune system.
APHA = Aboriginal Person living with HIV/AIDS
AASO = Aboriginal AIDS Service Organization. A health association, agency or organization involved with the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.
ABORIGINAL = Indigenous peoples in Canada, including Inuit, Métis and First Nations, who are status or non-status, on or off-reserve.
ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY = Refers to a group of Aboriginal people residing in a single locality and/or united through shared experiences. Such communities may arise in reserves, remote settlements, or rural or urban areas. The term may also be used generally to refer to all Aboriginal people living in Canada.
ANONYMOUS HIV TESTING = A type of testing that is 100% confidential, where you are only identified by a number and only you will know what the test result is. Only available at specific sites across Canada.
ASO = AIDS Service Organization
CBO = Community-Based Organization. This includes ASOs, AASOs, community health care providers, and other not-for-profit organizations.
CHR = Community Health Representative
CHN = Community Health Nurse
COCKTAIL/ DRUG COCKTAIL = Medical slang for an HIV therapy regime involving three or four drugs used in combination.
CONFIDENTIALITY = A duty that is imposed on certain people and organizations as one way of protecting a person’s privacy. There is both a legal duty of confidentiality and an ethical duty of confidentiality. From the perspective of people living with HIV/AIDS, the most important duty is the one placed on certain people and organizations to keep personal health information confidential.
DISCLOSURE = Telling someone something private. HIV disclosure refers to the disclosure of a person’s HIV status.
DISCRIMINATION = The unfair or unequal treatment of a person or group of people because of a particular mark or characteristic. The unfair treatment is often based on a real or imagined difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
EPI = Epidemiological
HIGH RISK ACTIVITY = Activities such as having unprotected sex or sharing needles or equipment for injecting drugs that greatly increase the risk of contracting HIV or STI’s.
HIV = Human Immunodeficiency Virus. HIV is a virus that needs the human body to live. It attacks the body’s immune system and does not allow the immune system to fight off diseases and infections the way it is supposed to. HIV can only be transmitted through blood or other bodily fluids. Tears, sweat and saliva do not contain enough of the virus to be contagious.
HIV + = HIV positive
HIV- = HIV negative
HIGH RISK ACTIVITY = Activities such as having unprotected sex or sharing needles or equipment for injecting drugs that greatly increase the risk of contracting HIV or STI’s.
HOMOPHOBIA = An irrational fear of, or aversion to, gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual people.
IDU = Injection Drug Use
INTER-SEXED = Another term for hermaphrodite, a person born with genitals that show characteristics of both sexes.
LOW RISK ACTIVITY = Activities that pose a low risk for contraction for HIV, such as oral sex, intercourse with a condom, rimming, etc.
MSM = Men who have Sex with Men
NOMINAL HIV TESTING = Your name is used on all medical forms and test results are recorded on your medical chart. This type of testing is used in many doctors’ offices and health clinics and can be referred to as “confidential” testing.
NON-NOMIMAL HIV TESTING = (Also known as confidential testing) Instead of using your name on medical forms, you are assigned a number code. Your test results are recorded on your medical records.
NO RISK ACTIVITY = Activities that pose no substantial risk for transmission of HIV, such as kissing, coughing or sneezing, shaking hands, sharing utensils, sitting on a toilet seat, etc.
OCAP = Ownership, Control, Access and Possession. Refers to the status of information and programs intended to benefit Aboriginal people in Canada and the notion that these programs should be owned, controlled, accessed and possessed by Aboriginal People for Aboriginal people. CAAN is committed to the principles of OCAP.
PHA = Person living with HIV/AIDS
PHN = Public Health Nurse
PRE-TEST AND POST-TEST COUNSELLING = An opportunity to speak about what is involved with the HIV or STI test and the outcomes.
SEX TRADE WORKER = Someone who engages in sexual activity with another person for money (commonly known as a prostitute or hooker).
SHARING NEEDLES = Using injection drug needles more than once on more than one person or sharing other equipment for injecting drugs such as spoons, saucers, rigs, etc.
STIGMA = Something that causes shame, like a mark or characteristic. Stigma is closely associated with discrimination.
STI = Sexually Transmitted Infection. A sexually transmitted infection (also known as an STD) is spread through sexual, either through bodily fluids, blood or skin to skin contact. Some are treatable and others are not.
TRANSGENDERED = People who feel they are members of the opposite sex than that which they were born. This exists with or without the need/desire to change their bodies. Transgendered people may or may not take hormones and may or may not have genital surgery. Transgenderism is a much debated term. It has been described as “an umbrella term to refer to all forms of thinking and behaviour across gender lines.”
TRANSSEXUAL = A person who wishes and seriously acts upon the sense of having the wrong gender body, often – though not always – culminating in sexual reassignment surgery. Pre-operative transsexuals include those not yet undergoing surgery; post-operative transsexuals are those who have received surgery; non-operative transsexuals are those who, for whatever reason, cannot or choose not to have surgery.
TRANSMISSION = Refers to the spread of disease, such as STI’s of HIV.
TRANSVESTISM = Also known as “crossdressing”. The term generally refers to dressing in the clothing of the opposite sex. Transvestites differ from transsexuals in that they generally do not consider themselves to be members of the opposite sex or even want to be.
TREATMENT (S) = Prescribed medical therapy
TWO-SPIRIT OR TWO-SPIRITED = A generic term used by some Aboriginal people to describe, from a cultural perspective, people who are known in mainstream as either gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or inter-sexed/transgendered.
WINDOW PERIOD = Refers to the period of up to 3 months between the first HIV infection and when the body makes anti-bodies to fight it (sero-conversion). During this time, an HIV test may give a negative result even though a person is infected with HIV.
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