Culture-Based Prediction of Adolescent HIV Risk

描述（由申请人提供）：文化由思想、理解、信仰和主观知识组成，是特定社会群体中青少年共有的青少年危险行为的决定因素。文化影响青少年的危险行为，因为个人选择的角色和选择的情况导致危险行为的文化设定的选项。在这个以社区为基础的为期五年的研究项目中，我们计划研究青少年文化的一个特定领域，即性和浪漫关系。我们关注的是两种与性和恋爱关系相关的HIV感染风险较高的人群——中低到低经济地位的非裔美国异性恋晚期青少年和中低到低经济地位的非裔美国性少数群体晚期青少年。这项研究的目的是确定艾滋病风险的文化预测因素，这些预测因素分别适用于中低到低社会经济地位的非裔美国青少年，无论是异性恋还是性少数取向。我们的第一个具体目标是使用定性方法，在三个地理位置较远的城市：加利福尼亚州奥克兰、伊利诺伊州芝加哥和阿拉巴马州伯明翰的异性恋和性少数群体社区中，确定性和浪漫关系的文化模型。我们的第二个具体目标是使用调查，比较来自同样三个异性恋和性少数群体的样本中与性和浪漫关系相关的文化模型。我们的第三个具体目标是研究文化模型决定的与性和恋爱关系相关的文化特定属性（CS As）对每个性取向群体的艾滋病毒风险行为的影响。使用新的样本，我们将验证这样的假设，即这些CSA措施将比非文化自我报告措施更好地预测相应性取向群体的艾滋病毒风险行为，而非文化自我报告措施已被证明可以预测这些人群的艾滋病毒风险行为。拟议的研究测试了一种识别与性和浪漫关系有关的群体特定文化知识的创新方法，校准了研究结果以解释群体间的差异，并制定了既可用于解释艾滋病毒风险行为又可用于设计适合特定人群的艾滋病毒风险降低干预措施的文化措施。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Consisting of ideas, understandings, beliefs, and subjective knowledge, culture is a determinant of adolescent risk behavior that is shared by adolescents in a given social group. Culture affects adolescent risk behavior because individuals choose roles and select situations leading to risky behavior from among culturally posited options. In this proposed five year community-based research project, we plan to study a particular domain of adolescent culture, that of sex and romantic relationships. We focus on two populations that have high levels of risk for HIV infection associated with sex and romantic relationships- mid-low to low SES African American heterosexual late adolescents and mid-low to low SES African American sexual minority late adolescents. The goal of the research is to identify cultural predictors of HIV risk that are generalizable, respectively, to mid-low to low SES African American adolescents of either heterosexual or sexual minority orientation. Our first specific aim is to identify, using qualitative methods, cultural models of sex and romantic relationships in samples drawn from heterosexual and sexual minority communities in three geographically distal cities: Oakland, CA, Chicago, IL and Birmingham, AL. Our second specific aim is to compare, using a survey, cultural models related to sex and romantic relationships among samples drawn from the same three heterosexual and the same three sexual minority groups. Our third specific aim is to study the effect of cultural model-determined culturally specified attributes (CS As) related to sex and romantic relationships on the HIV risk behaviors of each sexual orientation group. Using new samples, we will test the hypothesis that these CSA measures will predict HIV risk behaviors of the corresponding sexual orientation group better than non-cultural self-report measures that have previously been shown to predict HIV risk behaviors in these populations. The proposed research tests an innovative method for identification of group- specific cultural knowledge related to sex and romantic relationships, calibrates findings to account for inter-group differences, and develops cultural measures that can be used both to explain HIV risk behavior and to design HIV risk reduction interventions suited to specific populations.