Profiles of Rural African Americans in a HIV/AIDS Faith-based Anti-Stigma Clinical Trial

Issues:  Strategies which focus on HIV/AIDS stigma, especially in the rural Deep South are becoming increasingly important in order to stem the epidemic.  The objective of this session is to describe profiles of rural African American pastors and congregational members recruited into an HIV/AIDS anti-stigma clinical trial and provide insight on public health impact.

Description: Purposive recruitment of 12 African American pastors and congregational members from churches in rural Alabama was conducted.  Demographic data collected included gender of the pastor, denomination and location of the church.  HIV knowledge and stigma of all participants was measured as well.   Data was summarized from a log of impressions about recruited pastor profiles kept by the research team and perceptions received from four Ministerial Liaisons to the project.

Lessons Learned: Ten out of 12 pastors recruited were male, 2 female and all represented four denominations (Disciples of Christ, Baptist, Christian Methodist Episcopal, and African Methodist Episcopal Zion) and eight counties.  Profiles which were facilitators of recruitment included: interest or activism in social justice/health issues or support of these issues by their larger denomination, personal experience with HIV/AIDS, buy-in for the study by pastor, church leadership and congregation members.  Barriers to recruitment included: denomination, isolated location of congregation, congregational size, interest or comfort of pastor.

Recommendations:

Certain rural African American profiles may be predictive of recruitment into a faith-based HIV/AIDS clinical trial.  Outreach efforts designed to identify selected profiles into HIV/AIDS initiatives could be important in building HIV/AIDS prevention capacity where needed.