Understanding African American youth HIV knowledge: Exploring the role of racial socialization and family communication about "hard to talk about topics"

Mary M. McKay, William M. Bannon, James Rodriguez, Kelly Taber Chasse

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study examining correlates of urban African American youth HIV knowledge. The influence of family level factors (e.g., family communication, parental AIDS knowledge and myths regarding HIV transmission, along with family composition and family income) are examined. In addition, the current study explores the influence of racial socialization processes, specifically the influence of religious/spiritual coping, extended family caring, cultural pride reinforcement and racial awareness teaching (Stevenson, 1994; 1995; 1997) on youth HIV knowledge. Multivariate analyses revealed a significant association between youth HIV knowledge and being reared in a single parent home. Further, in every model, controlling for all types of racial socialization processes, family communication was significantly associated with youth HIV knowledge. Implications are drawn regarding the development of culturally and contextually specific HIV prevention programming for African American youth and their families.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)81-100
Number of pages20
JournalSocial Work in Mental Health
Volume5
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - 22 May 2007

Keywords

  • Culturally and contextually specific HIV prevention programs
  • Influence of family level factors
  • Influence of racial socialization processes
  • Parental myths regarding HIV transmission
  • Urban African American youth HIV knowledge

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