HIV Prevention Practices Promoted by African American Faith Leaders: A National Overview

Traditionally Black faith leaders have been in the forefront of those advocating for the spiritual, physical, and mental health needs of members of their community. Social scientists have begun to document local efforts of Black ministers to engage in HIV prevention initiatives. The current project represents the first multi-denominational nationwide survey of Black faith leaders to determine their HIV prevention practices as well as barriers to engagement. Participants were recruited at social justice and faith-based conferences as well as through emails which provided a link to an on-line survey. Participants, who were interdenominational, were 40% male and 60% female. 70% of the sample provides ministry in urban versus suburban or rural areas. The most common HIV-related activities the faith leaders endorse engaging in are prayer, mentioning HIV in a sermon, providing pastoral care and counseling, attending community meetings related to HIV, and supporting the start or continuation of a church health ministry that includes HIV programming. The three barriers that faith leaders endorse that keep them from doing more on the issue of HIV prevention are lack of knowledge/information, the need for health professionals with expertise in HIV prevention to provide assistance, and the need for resources/funds to support HIV prevention initiatives. Only 13% of faith leaders indicated that they were not convinced that addressing HIV prevention was a responsibility of the faith community. These findings demonstrate an increased role that many faith leaders are willing to play and provide best practices that decision-makers should consider including in their programming.