Yuri Larin (asker) Sep 15, 2019:

Michael, sure, the sentence is less than beautiful any way you look at it. But that’s part of the job description. Sometimes, you get pelted with bucketfuls of crap, and your task is to elegantly brush it off of your shoulders and try to process it into something usable but slightly less ugly. Garbage in, recycled garbage out :) “Status” is probably a reference to their HIV-positive status. Thanks for your input!

The Misha Sep 14, 2019:

This is a horrible sentence in Russian and it will get worse still if you try to drag all this lame newspeak into your translation. What they probably mean by this mush is that women addicts openly participating in the program under their true names and acknowledging their affliction may affect the public's perception of the program and create a certain amount of goodwill. Never mind that "status". This would be a total misnomer in English.