Drug problems and "at risk" women's involvement in HIV risk behaviors.

Abstract

This paper focuses on two research questions: is there a relationship between women's number of drug problems and the extent to which they engage in HIV risk behaviors? What factors influence the extent to which women experience drug-related problems? This study is based on 250 adult "at risk" women (predominantly African American) in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area. Street outreach efforts, targeted sampling, and ethnographic mapping procedures were used to identify potential study participants. The more drug problems women experienced, the greater their involvement in HIV risk behaviors was. The number of drug problems experienced was a significant contributor to the model predicting women's HIV risk involvement, along with religiosity, living with substance abusers, and age of first drug use. Depression, optimism, coping with stress, and number of different drugs used predicted the extent to which women experienced drug problems. Drug problems are an important predictor of women's involvement in HIV risk behaviors. Programs wishing to reduce their risk for contracting HIV should target drug-involved women and help them to stop using drugs.