African-Americans Nationwide

Community Profile: African-Americans Nationwide

Community Characteristics

African-Americans participated in each of our focus groups. Regardless of location, virtually all of the African-Americans we spoke with had a heightened awareness of HIV compared with the other participants. In most of the groups, the African-Americans were among the most active participants and generally volunteered their thoughts early in the discussion. Every African-American, except for one, identified HIV/AIDS as the most important health problem facing the world, and they reported seeing advertisements about HIV when others in the group thought media attention had all but disappeared.

A participant from Los Angeles said, “I still see advertisements. You guys might not see them. I see them. They might not be as prevalent as they used to be 10, 5 years ago, but they still have them.” Additionally, any time we asked about the rate of HIV increasing or decreasing, most of the African-Americans believed the rate was increasing.

Their heightened awareness of HIV was emphasized by the fact that they were aware of the increased incidence of HIV within their own group. Every African-American, except for one, knew someone either with HIV or who had died of AIDS, and in almost every group, they were able to identify African-Americans as a group at higher risk for HIV.

As a male in the New York City group put it, “I meet people every day that they either lost somebody close to them, or somebody they know died from AIDS.” And a woman in Des Moines said, “I know that in African-American females, that number has raised significantly in the last couple years... It is going up in that population exponentially.”

Interestingly, while the participants we spoke with were more aware of the increased incidence of HIV in their community, there were more statements from the African-Americans that indicate HIV is still seen as a gay disease. A woman in Westchester put it this way: “[F]or men [on finding out someone is HIV-positive], the first question is, ‘Is he gay?’… You know—he doesn’t have to be gay.”

While the African-Americans in each group offered more information about HIV/AIDS and often were the first to answer our questions—such as those asking about the difference between HIV and AIDS or details about HIV medication—like other participants, they sometimes overstated risks about HIV and had other misconceptions about the disease. In the Los Angeles group, both African-Americans said that we still “have a lot to learn” about how HIV is transmitted. Both thought one could get HIV from kissing, and one thought that HIV could be transmitted through sweat. Two African-Americans in the New York group were opposed to the idea of HIV-positive people working in food service.

The African-Americans we spoke with had similar views as the others in the focus groups on how to address HIV/AIDS. Like most other participants, they favored education and research toward a vaccine. And as with others we spoke with, there was no consensus on other proposals, with many participants thinking of these ideas for what seemed to be the first time.

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