“Dropping all these individuals was by no means removed from his thoughts,” stated his brother, who’s his solely fast survivor. “And it tied deeply into his private life. He misplaced his lover, who was his soul mate.”

His accomplice’s loss of life stirred one thing in him.

“When he lastly noticed those that survived, he noticed they weren’t surviving properly,” he added. “So Stephen thought, ‘How can I do one thing about this?’ He couldn’t do something when it was occurring within the 1980s, however then he received his probability.”

Dr. Karpiak left Columbia College within the mid-1990s and moved to Phoenix to run a clinic for individuals residing with H.I.V. He additionally managed an company there that supplied housing for homeless males residing with the virus.

Dr. Karpiak returned to New York in 1999 to guide the Satisfaction Senior Community. At some point at a well being truthful he gave out a easy questionnaire that requested: In case you are older and have been to out of the blue fall unwell, do you have got somebody who would take care of you? After learning the responses, he undertook his analysis.

Dr. Karpiak joined the school of New York College’s Faculty of Nursing in his 60s and later labored for G.M.H.C. (previously Homosexual Males’s Well being Disaster), the place he based its Nationwide Useful resource Heart on H.I.V. and Getting old.

When the coronavirus pandemic gripped New York, Dr. Karpiak grew involved about how older individuals residing with H.I.V. can be affected by lockdown. Sequestered in his Hell’s Kitchen house, he took half in internet conferences with medical consultants to handle the subject. He at all times inspired his analysis topics to tune in, so they may hear that somebody was looking for them.

“The Covid-19 pandemic confirmed us that we’re an ageist society,” Dr. Karpiak stated in 2020. “We hear misinformation always: ‘This virus solely impacts outdated individuals,’ so most individuals, ‘don’t want to fret about it a lot.’”

“I’ve heard many older adults say, ‘The worst factor on the earth is to really feel deserted,’” he continued. “Much more unsettling is listening to from them, ‘There’s something worse than AIDS, like loneliness.’”