An HIV Testing Intervention in African American Churches: Pilot Study Findings
- PDF / 311,245 Bytes
- 6 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 14 Downloads / 137 Views
BRIEF REPORT
An HIV Testing Intervention in African American Churches: Pilot Study Findings Jannette Berkley-Patton, MA, PhD 1 & Carole Bowe Thompson, BS 1 & Erin Moore, PhD 2 & Starlyn Hawes, PhD 3 & Stephen Simon, PhD 1 & Kathy Goggin, PhD 4 & David Martinez, PhD 5 & Marcie Berman, MA 1 & Alexandria Booker, BA 1
Published online: 28 January 2016 # The Society of Behavioral Medicine 2016
Introduction African Americans represent nearly 45 % of new HIV cases each year [1, 2]. Due to delayed HIV diagnosis, African Americans tend to enter HIV treatment at advanced stages and die from AIDS sooner than Whites [1]. Goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy include having 90 % of persons living with HIV be aware of their HIV-positive status and expanding community-level HIV testing approaches in high-risk communities to reduce the spread of HIV [3]. Also, CDC guidelines promote universal, routine screening of all individuals aged 13 to 64 in health care settings [4]. However, many African Americans have limited access to health care due to a myriad of barriers (e.g., mistrust of providers and lack of insurance). Increasing reach of routine HIV testing to African Americans in medical and community settings will be critical to achieving national goals.
* Jannette Berkley-Patton [email protected] 1
School of Medicine, Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2411 Holmes Street, Kansas City, MO 64108, USA
2
Psychology Department, Stetson University, DeLand, FL, USA
3
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Center for Healthcare Improvement for Addictions, Mental Illness, and Medically Vulnerable Populations, University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, WA, USA
4
Health Services and Outcomes Research, Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics and Schools of Medicine and Pharmacy, University of Missouri, Kansas City, MO, USA
5
School of Nursing and Health Professions, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
The Black Church is a powerful institution with a history of mobilizing African American communities for social change [5] and has many strengths that could help extend HIV testing to more African Americans. Studies indicate fairly stable church attendance among African Americans [6–8], and most attend church weekly [7]. Also, most Black churches have regular weekly services [5, 9], similar religious activities (e.g., testimonials and preaching) [5, 9], support for healthy lifestyles [9–12], and accessible meeting spaces [5, 9, 13]. Many also have outreach ministries (e.g., food pantries, utility assistance, and recovery programs) that could extend reach of HIV testing to underserved community members who may be at great risk for HIV [9, 11]. Studies suggest many African American faith leaders are willing to provide HIV education and testing for their church/ community members [14–17]; however, their reported challenges in doing so have included church capacity issues (e.g., lack of HIV training, church-appropriate HIV materials, time, and re
Data Loading...
