Social networks and HIV/AIDS risk perceptions
Social networks and HIV/AIDS risk perceptions
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DOI：
10.1353/dem.2007.0006
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发表时间：
2007-02-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Watkins, Susan C.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kohler, Hans-Peter;Behrman, Jere R.;Watkins, Susan C.
了解个人对其感染艾滋病毒风险的看法以及他们对可接受的预防策略的看法的决定因素是遏制这种疾病传播的重要一步。我们在这篇文章中的重点是学习和决策艾滋病的高度不确定性的疾病和适当的行为反应的背景下。我们认为，社会互动对两者都很重要。利用肯尼亚和马拉维农村的纵向调查数据，我们检验了这一假设。我们调查是否社会互动，特别是在何种程度上，社会网络的合作伙伴认为自己处于危险之中，施加因果关系的影响受访者的风险认知和一种方法来预防，配偶沟通艾滋病的威胁，夫妇和他们的孩子。这项研究明确地考虑到，重要的特征，如未观察到的偏好或社区特征，不仅决定了感兴趣的结果，而且还决定了网络的规模和组成。最重要的实证结果是，即使在我们控制了未观察到的因素之后，社交网络对风险感知和新行为的采用也有显著和实质性的影响。
Understanding the determinants of individuals' perceptions of their risk of becoming infected with HIV and their perceptions of acceptable strategies of prevention is an essential step toward curtailing the spread of this disease. We focus in this article on learning and decision-making about AIDS in the context of high uncertainty about the disease and appropriate behavioral responses. We argue that social interactions are important for both. Using longitudinal survey data from rural Kenya and Malawi, we test this hypothesis. We investigate whether social interactions-and especially the extent to which social network partners perceive themselves to be at risk-exert causal influences on respondents 'risk perceptions and on one approach to prevention, spousal communication about the threat of AIDS to the couple and their children. The study explicitly allows for the possibility that important characteristics, such as unobserved preferences or community characteristics, determine not only the outcomes of interest but also the size and composition of networks. The most important empirical result is that social networks have significant and substantial effects on risk perceptions and the adoption of new behaviors even after we control for unobserved factors.