Support is requested to continue a prospective life history study of HIV/AIDS infection in a community representative sample of urban African Americans who have been studied since adolescence. The first stage of this HIV/AIDS related research constituted the fourth round of data collection with the same sample (N=364, at ages 32-38) with completion rate of 92% of the prior wave. Blood or saliva samples for HIV-1 antibody assay were collected from 79% (N=287) of the interviewed. Analysis for response bias in assay participation on the basis of drug or sexual risk factors showed no selectivity on these grounds. A fifth round of data collection -- interview and saliva samples for antibody assay -- is proposed here at a 3-year interval from prior assessment to track changing prevalence, changing rates of primary and secondary infection, of drug vs sexual infection vectors, and, particularly, to assess maintenance vs. relapse in risk reduction behaviors. In addition, further analyses of the current data are proposed to identify predictive factors in three critical HIV-1 relationships which the current research has revealed: misperceptions of own HIV/AIDS risk and non-awareness of infected status; concurrence of HIV infection with female IDU's who had babies by age 17; significant sibling concordance in HIV status (but not in drug injection); and to model the mediating role of social supports and social networks in infection likelihood. Analytic studies incorporating the five rounds of data will be focussed on symptom and medical care trajectories in HIV/AIDS illness progression and testing a time extended (from adolescence to mid adulthood) developmental model of social and individual influences on HIV risk perceptions and infection status.
| Brunswick, A F; Aidala, A; Dobkin, J et al. (1993) HIV-1 seroprevalence and risk behaviors in an urban African-American community cohort. Am J Public Health 83:1390-4 |
