Hugh Klein, PhD, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, 401 Schuyler Road, Silver Spring, MD 20910, 301-588-8875, hughk@aol.com, Claire Sterk, PhD, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, 1518 Clifton Road, NE, Atlanta, GA 30322, and Kirk W. Elifson, Department of Sociology, Georgia State University, One University Plaza, Atlanta, GA 30303.

PURPOSE: Involvement in risky sex continues to be a problem in the United States. Research has shown that knowledge about HIV and AIDS is relatively great, even among persons who engage in high rates of risky sexual behaviors. This begs the question: What characteristics underlie involvement in unprotected sex? Addressing that question is the primary aim of this study. METHODS: This research was conducted between August 1997 and August 2000 in the Atlanta metropolitan area with 185 sexually-active adult “at risk” women. Street outreach, targeted sampling, and ethnographic mapping were used to recruit study participants. RESULTS: Using a multivariate analysis, five factors were found to be predictive of women’s unsafe sexual practices: marital status, sexual orientation, having two drug-abusing parents, amount of illegal drug use reported, and negative attitudes toward condoms. Further exploration of the latter measure yielded four factors that were predictors of condom attitudes: age, childhood neglect experiences, self-esteem level, and the number of drug-related problems. CONCLUSIONS: HIV intervention programs working with “at risk” women ought to consider concentrating their efforts at married women (who probably perceive themselves to be at lesser risk than their unmarried counterparts), lesbian/bisexual women (who often perceive themselves to have no risk for contracting HIV), and drug abusers. Helping women to feel more favorable toward using condoms would also be wise. This could be done by targeting the groups that have the most negative condom attitudes: older adults, childhood neglect victims, those suffering from low self-esteem, and those experiencing drug-related problems.

Learning Objectives: After hearing this presentation, participants will learn

(
• how frequent unprotected sex is among "at risk" women; (
• that condom-related attitudes are one of the key predictors of how much unprotected sex women have; (
• what other factors were associated with greater/lesser involvement in unsafe sex;
• what variables were predictive of women's condom-related attitudes; and (
• what we believe are important steps that future HIV intervention programs ought to consider in their efforts to reduce HIV risk among "at risk" women.

Keywords: HIV Risk Behavior, Condom Use

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.