Culture-Based Prediction of Adolescent HIV Risk

描述(由申请人提供)：由想法、理解、信念和主观知识组成，文化是特定社会群体中青少年共享的青少年危险行为的决定因素。文化影响青少年的风险行为，因为个人从文化假设的选项中选择角色和选择导致风险行为的情景。在这个拟议的五年社区研究项目中，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。我们专注于与性行为和浪漫关系相关的艾滋病毒感染高风险的两个人群-中低至低SES非裔美国人异性恋青少年和中低SES非裔美国人性少数群体晚青少年。这项研究的目标是确定艾滋病毒风险的文化预测因素，分别适用于具有异性取向或性少数取向的中低至低社会经济地位的非裔美国青少年。我们的第一个具体目标是，使用定性的方法，在来自三个地理位置遥远的城市：奥克兰、加利福尼亚州、芝加哥、伊利诺伊州和亚拉巴马州伯明翰的异性恋和性少数群体社区样本中辨识性和浪漫关系的文化模式。我们的第二个具体目标是通过一项调查，在来自相同的三个异性恋和相同的三个性少数群体的样本中，比较与性和浪漫关系有关的文化模式。我们的第三个具体目标是研究与性和浪漫关系相关的文化模式决定的文化特定属性(CS A)对每个性取向群体艾滋病毒危险行为的影响。使用新的样本，我们将检验这样的假设，即这些CSA措施将比先前被证明预测这些人群中艾滋病毒危险行为的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危险行为。这项拟议的研究测试了一种识别与性和浪漫关系有关的特定群体文化知识的创新方法，校准了研究结果，以考虑到群体间的差异，并开发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降低风险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.