Remembering the Basics: African American Youth and HIV Knowledge - Brief Report

This research was supported by a grant from the Royalty Research Fund at the University of Washington. We thank all the youth, families, and community organizations for their participation.

The current work examined three HIV knowledge areas (i.e.,general knowledge, HIV-safe behaviors, HlV-risk behaviors) among African American youth living in two urban areas.

In a cross sectional sample of 142 African American youth ages11-17 years living in Chicago and Seattle, youth's HIV knowledge wasassessed using a 16-item survey adapted from the Youth AIDS Prevention Project and the Aban Aya Project.

Multiple linear regression analyses examined the association among youth HIV knowledge and key demographic variables (i.e., age, gender, parent education, household income, and city). Overall HIV knowledge was low among all youth. Youth were most informed about general knowledge, followed by knowledge of HlV-risk behaviors. Youth were considerably misinformed about HIV-safe behaviors. Generally, older youth and those living in Seattle were more informed about HIV than younger adolescents and youth living in Chicago. Household income and youth gender were unrelated to youth's HIV knowledge. However, parental education was related to youth's HIV-safe knowledge, with youth of more educated parents having less knowledge than youth with less educated parents.

Findings from this study underscore the importance of continued attention to HIV knowledge as an important component of HIVprevention among African American youth. Accurate information about HIV is critical for prevention efforts. Prevention efforts should ensure that new generations of youth continue to be provided with knowledge about HIV risk and transmission.

PubMed.