Strengthening Community Care-Based Options for Children Orphaned by HIV and AIDS in Zambia: A Nexus of Cultural Competency and Translational Research

Abstract

HIV and AIDS have had a devastating impact on Zambian families and communities. For more

than two decades families and communities have been struggling with finding effective ways of

providing effective community-based care to children orphaned as a result of the HIV and AIDS

epidemic. Unlike in the past when children orphaned by AIDS received readily available community

care options, today the situation is different as children impacted by HIV and AIDS do not receive

the appropriate and ready care they need. Although HIV and AIDS infection rates in Zambia seem

to have stabilized, the number of children orphaned by AIDS keeps on increasing. These children

face a plethora of social-economic and emotional and challenges.There is need to improve the

quality of community-based care options for them. One way this might be accomplished is through

use of cultural competence and translational research as frameworks for scaling-up available care

options.These two approaches are innovative and have potential to improve orphaned children’s

overall well-being. For example culture competence could serve as platform for providing relevant

skill sets to families and communities providing care to orphaned children. Further, as families and

communities grapple with the challenges of care for orphaned children, translational research could

serve as a suitable approach that might make it possible for communities as well as families share

essential lessons within and between themselves. The outcome of using these two frameworks

could improve the well-being of orphaned children impacted by HIV and AIDS.