URBAN CONGREGATIONS' CAPACITY FOR HIV PREVENTION & CARE

描述(由申请者提供)：宗教集会影响到许多人的生活，并在推动社会变革方面发挥着重要作用。它们能否在防治艾滋病毒/艾滋病的斗争中发挥同样强大的作用？尽管有一些证据表明答案是肯定的，但很少有研究系统地研究教会参与总体卫生项目的流行率和预测因素，更不用说参与艾滋病毒/艾滋病服务了。这项研究的目的是描述集中实施艾滋病毒/艾滋病预防和护理活动的过程，并审查与这些活动有关的因素。它受到一个概念框架的影响，在该框架中，会众从事艾滋病毒/艾滋病活动的能力及其兴趣受到规范和态度(包括对艾滋病毒和同性恋的态度)、会众的组织结构和其他社区因素、各种资源(会众内部和外部)以及人口结构的影响。据推测，其中一些因素将预测会众决定实施任何类型的健康计划；其他因素将预测具体实施艾滋病毒/艾滋病活动的决定，第三组因素将预测所实施活动的类型和强度。假说将通过实地考察和采访洛杉矶县12个不同教派、种族和规模的教会的牧民和世俗领袖来进一步阐述，其中一半已经实施了艾滋病毒/艾滋病计划，一半没有，但在其他方面具有可比性。然后，将通过对该县受艾滋病毒/艾滋病影响不成比例的不同种族地区的800个会众进行电话调查，对假定影响会众参与的因素进行定量测试。社区特征的影响将通过汇编邻里层面的社会经济地位、种族多样性、社区需求等数据来检验。假设将通过分层线性建模技术进行检验。研究结果将对县卫生部门和卫生保健提供者有用，他们将有兴趣了解他们的努力可以在多大程度上得到会众的补充。寻求在社区环境中促进服务提供和培训潜在提供者的其他组织和机构也将对结果感兴趣；了解当地艾滋病毒/艾滋病参与的障碍和促进者应有助于他们有针对性地开展工作。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Religious congregations reach many lives and play an important role in working for social change. Could they play a similarly powerful role in the fight against HIV/AIDS? Although there is some evidence for an affirmative answer, few studies have examined systematically the prevalence and predictors of congregational involvement in health programs in general, much less in HIV/AIDS services. The purposes of this research are to describe the processes by which HIV/AIDS prevention and care activities are implemented in congregations and to examine factors associated with such activities. It is informed by a conceptual framework in which congregations' capacity to engage in HIV/AIDS activities and their interest in doing so are affected by norms and attitudes (including attitudes towards HIV and homosexuality), the organizational structure of congregations and other community elements, various sets of resources (internal to the congregation and external), and demographics. It is hypothesized that some of these factors will predict a congregation's decisions to implement health programs of any kind; other factors will predict decisions to implement HIV/AIDS activities in particular, and a third set of factors will predict the type and intensity of activities implemented. Hypotheses will be further elaborated through site visits and interviews with pastoral and lay leaders at 12 congregations of varying denomination, ethnicity, and size in Los Angeles County, half of which have implemented HIV/AIDS programs and half of which have not but are otherwise comparable. Factors hypothesized to influence congregational involvement will then be tested quantitatively through a telephone survey of 800 congregations in ethnically diverse areas of the county disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. The effects of community characteristics will be examined by compiling neighborhood-level data on socioeconomic status, ethnic diversity, community need, and so forth. Hypotheses will be tested through hierarchical linear modeling techniques. Study findings will be of utility to county health departments and health care providers, which will be interested to know to what extent their efforts may be supplemented by congregations. Results will also be of interest to other organizations and agencies that seek to promote service provision in community-based settings and to train potential providers; knowledge of local barriers to, and facilitators of, HIV/AIDS engagement should help them target their efforts.