142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Role of Black men's displacement due to incarceration & gentrification on sexual HIV risk: Developing the Psychosocial Impact of Displacement scale

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Andrea L. Heckert, Ph.D. , Department of Psychology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC
Lisa Bowleg, PhD , Department of Psychology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC
Background: Black men disproportionately experience incarceration and gentrification. Both phenomena are forms of displacement.  A displaced person is defined as someone forced to leave his/her native place. The relationship between the psychosocial impact of displacement (PID) and adverse health for refugees, labor migrants, and natural disaster evacuees are well-documented.  PID for Black men, its implications for health, and sexual risk specifically, are understudied.  Our study highlighted displacement from the perspective of Black men.  Menhood is a mixed-methods study of neighborhood and individual stressors and resilience on Black men’s sexual risk in Washington, DC, where 5.4% of Black men live with HIV.  This presentation describes the development of the PID scale. Ample evidence links incarceration and HIV among Black men. The role of displacement on Black men’s sexual risk warrants inquiry.

Methods: We analyzed 9 focus groups with predominantly low-income, heterosexual-identified, Black men, ages 18 – 48.  Inductive thematic analyses informed current survey item development and subsequent psychometric testing.

Results: Themes of neighborhood context, displacement and sexual risk include: (1) Incarceration disrupts social networks and limits employment, housing and educational opportunities; (2) Seeking economic stability and personal safety outrank HIV prevention; (3) Gentrification disrupts social networks; (4) Police harassment in renewed urban places stymies social cohesion, exacerbates criminal justice involvement, and increases psychological distress.

Conclusions: The impact of displacement helps answer how the context of place affects health. To this end, our findings on neighborhood context, displacement and sexual risk among Black men are integral to the PID scale currently in development.

Learning Areas:

Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related public policy
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Describe a mixed methods approach to developing a context-specific measure of Psychosocial Impact of Displacement (PID) for urban Black men. Explain the PID scale development process within the social-structural context of Black men’s lives (e.g., unemployment, racial discrimination, poverty). Discuss implications of the PID scale for further research and the development of HIV interventions for Black men and their sexual partners.

Keyword(s): African American, HIV/AIDS

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the project director and postdoctoral scientist for this study.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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