Adolescents' perceptions of risk for HIV infection: implications for future research

Few studies have investigated adolescents' perceptions of their risk for HIV infection. Findings from two studies of adolescents in Massachusetts indicate that there are differences in the knowledge, beliefs, behaviors, and perceptions of risk among adolescents and suggest the need for understanding the differences among adolescents from different racial or ethnic backgrounds. In both studies, white students were the most knowledgeable about casual, sexual, and drug use transmission of HIV followed by black, Hispanic, and Asian students. In both studies more black adolescents than other racial or ethnic groups were sexually active, and black and Hispanic adolescents began having sexual intercourse at an earlier age than white or Asian adolescents. Asian and Hispanic adolescents were most worried about getting AIDS. Although more Hispanics than other groups reported changing their behavior because of AIDS, fewer of them who had changed their sexual or contraceptive behavior were using effective methods. Despite clear differences in the perceived risk of getting AIDS among these adolescents, the underlying reasons remain to be explicated, using, among other data collection methods, ethnographic techniques to probe adolescents' risk perceptions, their understandings of sickness, and their explanatory models of AIDS. Life events affect risk taking behaviors and also shape perceptions of risk. To understand what it is that adolescents consider 'risky' requires seeing their life options as they do in the larger context of their aspirations and worries about how 'to fit in'.