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Purpose – To examine and critique the research on HIV/AIDS health disparities among Black Americans.

Methodology – A selective investigation of quantitative research on HIV/AIDS health disparities from the 1980s to the present. Prevalence and incidence of HIV/AIDS in Black American communities and research targeting individual-level behaviors and their outcomes are presented. The impact of racialized discourses related to Black sexuality and its impact on research are discussed. Future policy and practice directions are offered.

Findings – This chapter notes the preponderance of studies at the individual level even in the face of null findings.

Research limitations/implications – This work is not an exhaustive examination of all the studies on HIV racial health disparity.

Practical implications – This chapter contributes to the literature that redirects HIV/AIDS research from focus on individual behaviors in the face of a population-level epidemic.

Social implications – This chapter demonstrates how research goals may be diverted by unacknowledged racialized assumptions.

Originality/value of chapter – This study is one of the few critiques of HIV/AIDS research on Black Americans.

This chapter examines the life histories of selected teenage Filipino fathers relative to their experiences of dating, courtship, and the discovery, engagement, and experimentation with risk-taking behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, and premarital sex. Using an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), this study conducts family genogram and in-depth semi-structured interviews among eight teenage fathers. In so doing, it interrogates the consequences of sexual behaviors to the well-being of their respective families of orientation as well as the future of their expected family of procreation. The chapter argues how the risks of teenage fatherhood in the Philippines are relatively mitigated by the general conservative culture of Filipino families and the Catholic sense of religious orientation that seems to provide resilience captured in three themed experiences of “natauhan” (realization), “pinangatawanan” (accountability), and “pinanindigan” (owning responsibility). Thus, this chapter unravels the voices of young Filipino teenage fathers who straddles, on the one hand, the risk of premarital sex and pregnancy, and on the other hand, the challenges of responsible parenthood. In conclusion, the chapter provides policy insights on sex education and gender equality training for the vulnerable Filipino youth in the country.

In most countries, HIV and AIDS rates are higher among inmates than in the general population. As part of a series of studies aimed at examining the plausible links between HIV and incarceration in a State prison system in the United States (US), the present study examined pre‐incarceration sexual and injection drug use behaviours of inmates and their demographic correlates. Two‐hundred‐andsixteen female and 260 male inmates randomly selected from 17 Illinois State prisons completed a structured questionnaire. Findings indicate that the rate of inconsistent condom use with multiple anal and vaginal sexual partners among study participants ranged from 11 to 49%. Fourteen per cent of the women and 25% of the men reported ever injecting drugs, while 13% of the women and 7% of the men had ever shared needles. Demographic correlates of risk behaviours differed between gender and for specific behaviours. The findings indicate that persons entering prison generally exhibit risk behaviours that may increase their chances of acquiring HIV. Comprehensive HIV prevention programmes should be made available to inmates in US prisons and be accessible to them upon release. Studies are needed to examine how individual and structural factors interact to increase HIV and incarceration risk.

This study investigates the relationship between being formerly incarcerated and the sexual health of African American and White men. It uses data from the 2011–2013 National Survey of Family Growth to compare the likelihoods of reporting sexually transmitted disease among African American and White men who were formerly incarcerated with those who were never incarcerated. The results show that having been incarcerated increases the likelihood of having sexually transmitted infections (STIs) for both African American men and White men. The results also reveal that, when controlling for sociodemographic and sexual network differences, White men maintain lower infection rates than do comparable African American men regardless of their former incarceration statuses. When several factors are taken into account, the likelihood of infections for African American men who have never been incarcerated are higher than those of White men who have been incarcerated. Racial disadvantage is a key determinant of disparities in STIs between formerly incarcerated White males and never incarcerated African American males. The implications of these results are discussed.

Managing the risk of sex offending and sexually harmful behaviour presented by some men with intellectual disabilities is enhanced if community services map the number in their catchment area, apply appropriate risk assessment and management methods, and implement evidence‐based treatment. This paper describes the methods and progress of one community intellectual disability service in mapping and assessing the risks. A second paper is planned that will address progress in treatment.

The Russian Federation is the scene of one of the fastest-growing HIV epidemics in the world. In dialogue with the scholarship on gendered connections between migration and HIV/STIs, this study employs unique survey and qualitative data to examine HIV/STI-related risks and attitudes among working migrant women from three Central Asian countries and their native counterparts in three Russian cities. The analyses focus on involvement in risky sexual relationships, negotiation of trust and safer sexual practices in permanent partnerships, worries about HIV infection, and experience of HIV testing by comparing natives and migrants as well as migrants of different legal statuses. The results suggest that while migrant women are generally less likely to engage in risky behavior, they are also less able to establish trust and to negotiate safer sex within their permanent partnerships, compared to native women. Migrants are less worried about HIV risks than are native women. Finally, migrant women are less likely to get tested for HIV than natives, but the analyses also point to a particular disadvantage of migrants with temporary or irregular legal status. The findings are interpreted within the structural and cultural constraints that shape migrant women’s lives in Russia and similar migrant-receiving contexts.

This article focuses on psychosocial barriers to sexual health and their implications on the design and delivery of mass media‐based public health campaigns. A family planning campaign that attempted to address barriers to seeking sexual health information and services by promoting positive attitudes toward couple's communication about sexual health care is presented. Specifically, this article reports how the campaign conducted formative research to develop audience‐centered, culturally sensitive messages, particularly with young adults, aged 18‐24 as well as Hispanic young adults (aged 18‐24); and utilized mixed‐media to effectively reach at‐risk populations.

Stigma remains to be a major barrier to addressing the sustained rise of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in the Philippines. Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with other men (MSMs) (G/B/MSM) living with HIV experience compounded stigma due to their sexual identity and HIV seropositive status. The family has been identified as one of the main sources of homonegativity and HIV-related discrimination. Drawing from the family life histories of 31 Filipino MSMs living with HIV, the authors demonstrate the concept of compounding stigma, which posits that the extent and nature of gender- and sexuality-based stigma experienced in early life may potentiate or mitigate the experience of HIV stigma in later life in the context of the family. Narrative analysis of the family life histories reveals a central factor that shaped the sexual development and stigma experiences of MSMs living with HIV: sexual identity visibility in the family (SIVF) – the family’s extent of knowledge and/or acceptance of their sexuality. Three core narratives emerged from the data that categorize informants based on the type of SIVF present in their family life viz. full, partial, and invisible. Results also trace the resultant life trajectories for each core narrative and reveal three forms of compounding stigma: low compounding stigma or compounding acceptance, compounding enacted stigma, and compounding internalized stigma.

To investigate how parental divorce and gender might influence the likelihood of engaging in a friends with benefits relationship (FWBR), and the likelihood of binge drinking and unprotected sex practices.

Using self-report measures, 99 undergraduates shared their parental marital history, experiences with FWBRs, and health risk behaviors.

Men, as compared with women, reported significantly more FWBRs as did participants with divorced/separated parents, as compared with those with married parents. Participants who had engaged in an FWBR reported significantly more binge drinking than those with no prior FWBR experience; however, no differences were found for gender or parental marital status. No significant differences emerged regarding the prevalence of unprotected sex.

The current study employed the use of self-report surveys, which can be subject to social desirability. All participants were recruited from a single liberal arts college with a limited sample of men with divorced or separated parents.

Using mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) to explore young adults’ predictors and outcomes of engaging in FWBRs provided unique insights into how gender and parental relationships influence both casual sex and health-related behaviors.