An Exploration of African American Women's Perceptions of the Intersection of Domestic Violence and HIV/AIDS

The author explores the perceptions of the intersection of HIV and domestic violence from a cultural context among a sample of professional African American women, and how social workers can better respond to the intersection. While African American women compose 13% of the U.S. female population, they represent 64% of U.S. HIV cases among women. The aim of this study was to generate an understanding of how HIV and domestic violence intersect for African American women. Four focus groups were conducted with three cohorts of 22 African American/Caribbean American women for 12 focus groups. There were five major themes generated from the study: being from a low-income community is not always the major factor, relationships are complex and viewed as essential, HIV is serious but perceived risk is low, fear is a driving force of decision-making regarding relationships, and the strength of communalism is perceived as having diminished in the African American community. Implications for social work practice include creating greater awareness of the intersections between HIV, domestic violence and cultural context among African American women and to enhance the social work response to these intersections in practice, policy, and research.