Explore Stigma in the US
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About the project

Project Goal 

StigmaScope is a public health dashboard designed to visually represent stigma-related data for gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) impacted by HIV, highlighting opportunities for stigma mitigation across different geographic regions.

By systematically collecting and visualizing this data in partnership with health departments and community partners, the tool helps individuals, communities, and organizations assess the prevalence of specific stigmas, identify gaps for intervention, and model how stigma reduction could impact key Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) outcomes.

What is Stigma?

Stigma refers to negative or discriminatory beliefs directed toward a particular attribute or characteristic of an individual. HIV-related stigma targets individuals living with or at risk for HIV/AIDS through discrimination, negative attitudes, and social exclusion. These experiences create measurable barriers to HIV testing, treatment adherence, and care engagement, directly impeding local and national public health initiatives.

Dashboard Components

To quantify these barriers, StigmaScope is organized into three primary elements:

  • National Map
    Displays regional prevalence of general social stigma, anticipated healthcare stigma, and stigma from family and friends.
  • State Profiles
    Presents state-level prevalence of stigma constructs and additional structural stigma indicators, including HIV criminalization laws and hate crime statistics.
  • System Dynamics Model
    Utilizes defined stocks, flows, and auxiliary variables to quantify the mathematical relationships between stigma, mental health, and engagement across the HIV care continuum and its ecosystem.
Project Partners and Core Data 

StigmaScope was developed jointly by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, AIDSVu, and Signal development teams, in consultation with local health departments and community organizations.

The dashboard’s core visualizations rely on the American Men’s Internet Survey (AMIS)1, which tracks the demographics, sexual behaviors, HIV-related health behaviors, and stigma experiences of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men in the United States.

For comprehensive technical details on our use of AMIS and CDC surveillance data—including specific data aggregation methods, derived estimates, and system dynamics modeling—please visit the [Methodology Page].