The proposed study will examine data from national public opinion surveys in an effort to answer a question that is essential to the policy debate over the need for anti-discrimination legislation to protect individuals infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV): Is education sufficient to counteract the effects of discriminatory attitudes and practices against HIV-infected individuals? A recent review by the investigators of over 50 national public opinion surveys suggested that such individuals may face discriminatory attitudes and even outright hostility in schools, workplaces and communities from 20-25 percent of the American public (1). These views persist despite increased public awareness of the low risk of casual transmission of the virus. The review was unable to determine if those people who express hostility toward HIV- infected individuals are the same people who remain uninformed about how the virus is transmitted. No other studies have been published to date which make this association. Utilizing data that have been recently made available from surveys conducted by the Gallup Organization and the Los Angeles Times, the investigators will analyze the relationship between knowledge about HIV and attitudes toward those infected. The surveys have been conducted periodically by these organizations since 1985 and include responses from between 1,000 to 2,000 adults randomly selected from households nationwide. Variables to be considered include a number of measures of the likelihood of transmitting the virus by various means (sexual practices, sharing intravenous needles, prenatal exposure, blood transfusions, coughing or sneezing, working with an infected individual or allow a child to attend school with an infected child, quarantine and isolation measures, moral and religious judgments, etc.). The study will attempt 1) to define the factors that may hinder efforts to diagnose and treat infected individuals, 2) to suggest policy measures which might be necessary to counteract those factors and 3) to utilize time trend data to analyze the changing relationship between knowledge and attitudes over the course of the epidemic.
