title: Designing and evaluating strategies to recruit African Americans for AIDS/HIV interventions: targeting the African-American family.
abstract: The successful recruitment of African-Americans for AIDS/HIV interventions is essential to reducing HIV transmission and the spread of AIDS among this population. However, many high risk groups in the African-American community are reluctant to participate in AIDS/HIV interventions due to factors such as poverty, and cultural and religious values. This paper discusses the basis of these factors and presents a theoretical framework that holds some promise for designing and evaluating AIDS/HIV intervention recruitment strategies and a pilot study implementing this strategy is presented. The results emphasize the importance of targeting and empowering the African-American family in recruitment strategies, as opposed to specific subgroups of high risk individuals. Recruitment messages, which were channeled through a credible source and which stress the role of participants in contributing to the well-being of their families and communities, were most successful.
authors.affiliation: University of Washington, School of Social Work, Seattle, USA. icardl@u.washington.edu
authors.forename: L D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Icard
authors.forename: C E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Zamora-Hernandez
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Spencer
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Catalano
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American; D001294:Attitude to Health / Q000208:ethnology; D005190:Family / Q000208:ethnology*; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000208:ethnology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D018579:Patient Selection; D010565:Persuasive Communication; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011203:Poverty; D012307:Risk Factors; D012945:Social Values