AIDS prevention for African-American and Latina women: building culturally and gender-appropriate intervention

Abstract

African-American and Latino women are at high risk of HIV infection through heterosexual transmission, reflected in the significant increases in reported AIDS cases of women thus infected. Few AIDS-prevention programs have addressed this risk for women by directly, separately and, in appropriate ways, focusing on specific women's issues of gender roles, sexuality, and differential power relationships with men, in the context of racial and class relations, as these affect HIV transmission. This article discusses the contributions of a community-based AIDS-prevention program to the development of culturally and gender-appropriate intervention for African-American and Latina women at high risk. Further such programs are needed which build on the use of ethnic cultural concepts, racial and other social relations, and acknowledge issues specific to minority women in order to prevent their infection with HIV.