 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Sheryl Thorburn Bird, PhD, MPH, Department of Public Health, Oregon State University, 264 Waldo Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331-6406, 541-737-9493, Sheryl.Bird@oregonstate.edu and Laura M. Bogart, PhD, RAND Health, RAND Corporation, 1700 Main Street P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138.
A handful of empirical studies have found that substantial proportions of African Americans endorse conspiracy beliefs regarding HIV/AIDS (e.g., the belief that “the government is using AIDS as a way of killing off minority groups”). Those studies, however, were conducted more than 10 years ago and/or were limited in scope. The objective of this presentation is to provide current data on the endorsement of HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs among African Americans and to explore sociodemographic differences in those beliefs. We are currently conducting a cross-sectional telephone survey with a national, random sample of 500+ African Americans, aged 15-44 yrs. The 30-minute interview includes questions about HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs (14 items; alpha = .84) and related topics. Preliminary results for the first 373 respondents (136 men, 237 women) indicate that large percentages endorsed the HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs. For example, 49% agreed that “HIV is a manmade virus,” 31% agreed that “AIDS was produced in a government laboratory,” 18% agreed that “AIDS was created by the government to control the Black population,” and 46% agreed that “People who take the new medicines for HIV are human guinea pigs for the government.” In contrast, less than half agreed that “The government is telling the truth about AIDS” or that “The medicines used to treat HIV are saving lives in the Black community” (38% and 41%, respectively). These results indicate that many African Americans today hold conspiracy beliefs about HIV/AIDS.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: HIV/AIDS, African American
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.