HIV prevention outreach in black communities of three rural north Florida counties

Literature to guide HIV prevention outreach for southeastern rural blacks is limited despite the increasing prevalence of HIV infection in this population. Three men and one woman conducted HIV prevention outreach in three north Florida rural counties in teams of two. The workers received five days of training in additional homework assignments. The workers used HIV/AIDS outreach surveys to guide their 10- to 15-minute outreach visits. Five hundred seventy-four outreach contacts with blacks were made between January and June 2001 (329 in County 1, 176 in County 2, and 69 in County 3) with 347 women and 227 men. Eighty-four percent of the persons contacted accepted literature, 47.5% accepted male condoms, and 31.9% accepted female condoms. More women (99.4%) were knowledgeable about HIV/AIDS than men (92.5%), and they reported taking precautions against infection more often than men (98% vs. 90.3%). Many blacks in rural north Florida were receptive to an HIV prevention outreach program that provided information, literature, and condoms on the street and in homes. These findings suggest that HIV prevention outreach should be expanded to reach more rural blacks, who are increasingly at risk for HIV infection.