TY - JOUR
T1 - ‘Love and trust, you can be blinded’
T2 - HIV risk within relationships among Latina women in Miami, Florida
AU - Ibañez, Gladys E.
AU - Whitt, Elaine
AU - Avent, Tenesha
AU - Martin, Steve S.
AU - Varga, Leah M.
AU - Cano, Miguel A.
AU - O’Connell, Daniel J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under Grant R34DA031063. Steven Martin's work was supported in part by an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under grant number U54-GM104941 (PI: Binder-Macleod).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2017/9/3
Y1 - 2017/9/3
N2 - Objectives: Latina women are disproportionately affected by HIV in the US, and account for 30% of all HIV infections in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The main risk for Latina women is heterosexual contact. Little is known about the relational and cultural factors that may impact women’s HIV risk perception. This study aims to describe Latina women’s perception of their HIV risk within a relational, cultural, and linguistic context. Design: Eight focus groups of Latina women (n = 28), four English speaking groups and four Spanish speaking groups, were conducted between December 2013 and May 2014. Women were recruited from a diversion program for criminal justice clients and by word of mouth. Eligibility criteria included the following: self-identify as Hispanic/Latino, 18–49 years of age, and self-identify as heterosexual. A two-level open coding analytic approach was conducted to identify themes across groups. Results: Most participants were foreign-born (61%) and represented the following countries: Cuba (47%), Honduras (17.5%), Mexico (12%), as well as Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Venezuela (15%). Participant ages ranged between 18 and 49, with a mean age of 32 years. Relationship factors were important in perceiving HIV risk including male infidelity, women’s trust in their male partners, relationship type, and getting caught up in the heat of the moment. For women in the English speaking groups, drug use and trading sex for drugs were also reasons cited for putting them at risk for HIV. English speaking women also reported that women should take more responsibility regarding condom use. Conclusion: Findings emphasize the importance of taking relational and cultural context into account when developing HIV prevention programs for Latina women. Interventions targeting English speaking Latina women should focus on women being more proactive in their sexual health; interventions focused on Spanish speaking women might target their prevention messages to either men or couples.
AB - Objectives: Latina women are disproportionately affected by HIV in the US, and account for 30% of all HIV infections in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The main risk for Latina women is heterosexual contact. Little is known about the relational and cultural factors that may impact women’s HIV risk perception. This study aims to describe Latina women’s perception of their HIV risk within a relational, cultural, and linguistic context. Design: Eight focus groups of Latina women (n = 28), four English speaking groups and four Spanish speaking groups, were conducted between December 2013 and May 2014. Women were recruited from a diversion program for criminal justice clients and by word of mouth. Eligibility criteria included the following: self-identify as Hispanic/Latino, 18–49 years of age, and self-identify as heterosexual. A two-level open coding analytic approach was conducted to identify themes across groups. Results: Most participants were foreign-born (61%) and represented the following countries: Cuba (47%), Honduras (17.5%), Mexico (12%), as well as Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Venezuela (15%). Participant ages ranged between 18 and 49, with a mean age of 32 years. Relationship factors were important in perceiving HIV risk including male infidelity, women’s trust in their male partners, relationship type, and getting caught up in the heat of the moment. For women in the English speaking groups, drug use and trading sex for drugs were also reasons cited for putting them at risk for HIV. English speaking women also reported that women should take more responsibility regarding condom use. Conclusion: Findings emphasize the importance of taking relational and cultural context into account when developing HIV prevention programs for Latina women. Interventions targeting English speaking Latina women should focus on women being more proactive in their sexual health; interventions focused on Spanish speaking women might target their prevention messages to either men or couples.
KW - HIV
KW - Hispanic
KW - condom
KW - gender roles
KW - machismo
KW - mariansimo
KW - relationship
KW - women
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84992147348&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84992147348&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13557858.2016.1244737
DO - 10.1080/13557858.2016.1244737
M3 - Article
C2 - 27764959
AN - SCOPUS:84992147348
SN - 1355-7858
VL - 22
SP - 510
EP - 527
JO - Ethnicity and Health
JF - Ethnicity and Health
IS - 5
ER -