Associations Between HIV Risk, Unmitigated Communion, and Relationship Power Among African American Women

Abstract

Most new HIV infections among African American women are due to unprotected sex in heterosexual relationships. Women's scores on measures of relationship power and unmitigated communion (focus on others and exclusion of self) are associated with risky sexual behavior. We hypothesized African American women scoring low on relationship power and high on unmitigated communion would report greater risk for HIV infection. In a sample of 217 African American adult women, relationship power strongly correlated with HIV risk (p < .05), but unmitigated communion did not. Relationship power explained 40% of the variance in women's perceived HIV risk (β = −.631, p = .000). Compared to their high relationship power counterparts, African American women with low to moderate levels of relationship power were 5 to 40 times less likely to successfully negotiate condom use and only reduced their HIV risk by 5% to 20% (compared to 80% to 95% improvements in risk reduction by their high relationship power counterparts).

KEYWORDS:

• African American women
• heterosexual transmission
• HIV/AIDS
• relationship power
• unmitigated communion

This study is funded by Grant 1RO1 DA13894-01A1 to L. M. G. from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health.

Notes

Dependent variable: HIV risk.

^a Predictors: (constant), SRPS, age, unmitigated communion.

Dependent variable: HIV risk.

^a Predictors: (constant), SRPS modified, age, unmitigated communion.

^a [OR/1∗100; proportionally reduced].