Friday, 14 January 2005 - 10:00 AM

This presentation is part of: HIV Prevention and Treatment

Improving Minority Women’s Attendance in Family-Based HIV Prevention Programs

Objectives: To determine the factors associated with attending a family-based HIV prevention program – Collaborative HIV Prevention and Adolescent Mental Health Project (CHAMP) – among low-income African American women,.

Methods: The study examined baseline data from a cohort of 92 women. Mean age was 33.3 (SD = 7.7), most were unmarried (73%), and 74% received public assistance. Analyses are grounded in a framework of service utilization postulating that attendance is influenced by ecological domains – individual, program, social network. All data were assessed by semi-structured interview. The outcome, attendance, ranged from 1 - 12 sessions. Three sets of variables were identified corresponding to each ecological domain. Six variables with significant bivariate associations with attendance were used in hierarchical regression analysis, with block entry of individual domain variables (age, level of education, perception of racism), followed by program variables (staff friendliness, use of counseling), then network variables (influence of friends).

Results: Ages of respondents, levels of education, perceptions of racism in society, and influences of friends were negatively associated with attendance. Ratings of staff friendliness and prior use of counseling were positively associated. Individual domain variables accounted for 18% of variance in attendance. After controlling for these variables, program domain variables accounted for an additional 7% of variance. The network domain did not account for additional variance.

Conclusion: This study identified several important modifiable factors that could contribute to increasing attendance of multi-session HIV prevention programs targeting low-income minority women. Although programs clearly are unable to change the background characteristics or current social networks of clients, training staff to confront racism and to develop a warm, friendly environment has the potential to increase attendance at most risk for HIV exposure.

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