Does HIV status affect attitudes on welfare deservingness? A survey experiment on welfare policy in the US
通过一项在佛罗里达州进行的调查实验（n=600），研究了HIV状态如何影响公众对失业和医疗补助福利应得性的看法，发现当失业归因于HIV治疗时，支持度降低。
Studies examining welfare recipients’ deservingness are becoming increasingly more important as the US continues to debate access to unemployment benefits and make access to Medicaid more conditional. While there has been extensive research on the deservingness of some groups of welfare recipients, the intersection of HIV-related stigma and welfare deservingness has not been heavily studied since the early 2000s, leaving gaps in our knowledge of the current perceptions of deservingness, especially in light of medical breakthroughs in HIV treatments. In this study, we use an experimental vignette to assess the impact of HIV-related stigma on the perception of an HIV patient’s deservingness when it comes to unemployment and Medicaid benefits in Florida (n = 600). While HIV status does not appear to be a disqualifying factor, respondents were less likely to support the allocation of welfare benefits when the vignette attributed HIV treatment as the reason for unemployment. The results of this study highlight the impact that medical stigma can have on the deservingness of welfare recipients. This research makes an important contribution to our understanding of deservingness and enhances insights into how medical conditions generally and HIV, specifically, shape attitudes.