Urban-rural differences in motivation to control prejudice toward people with HIV/AIDS: the impact of perceived identifiability in the community.
BACKGROUND
HIV/AIDS is occurring with increasing frequency in rural areas of the United States, and people living with HIV/AIDS in rural communities report higher levels of perceived stigma than their more urban counterparts. The extent to which stigmatized individuals perceive stigma could be influenced, in part, by prevailing community attitudes. Differences between rural and more metropolitan community members' attitudes toward people with HIV/AIDS, however, have rarely been examined.


OBJECTIVE
This study investigated motivation to control prejudice toward people with HIV/AIDS among non-infected residents of metropolitan, micropolitan, and rural areas of rural New England.


METHODS
A total of 2,444 individuals were identified through a random digit dialing sampling scheme, and completed a telephone interview to determine attitudes and concerns about a variety of health issues. Internal or external motivation to control prejudice was examined using a general linear mixed model approach, with independent variables including age, gender, community size, and perceived indentifiability within one's community.


RESULTS
Results showed that community size, by itself, was not related to motivation to control prejudice. However, there was a significant interaction between community size and community residents' perceptions about the extent to which people in their communities know who they are.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that residents of rural areas, in general, may not show a higher level of bias toward people with HIV/AIDS. The interaction between community size and perceived identifiability, however, suggests that motivation to control prejudice, and potentially the subsequent expression of that prejudice, is more complex than originally thought.
Bunn
Janice Yanushka
JY
Department of Medical Biostatistics, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont 05405, USA. janice.bunn@uvm.edu
Solomon
Sondra E
SE
Varni
Susan E
SE
Miller
Carol T
CT
Forehand
Rex L
RL
Ashikaga
Takamaru
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D009511:New England; D011287:Prejudice; D012424:Rural Population; D012933:Social Identification; D014505:Urban Population