AIDS-Related Stigma and Attitudes toward Injecting Drug users among Black and White Americans

Abstract

Research has indicated that stigmatizing AIDS attitudes are associated with negative attitudes toward gay men. Because injecting drug users (IDUs) are also stigmatized and injecting drug use is an important exposure category for HIV infection, the authors hypothesized that AIDS stigma might also be related to attitudes toward IDUs and that the proportionately higher level of HIV transmission related to injecting drug use in the African American community would produce different patterns of stigma between Blacks and Whites. National probability samples of U.S. adults were interviewed by telephone. Respondents with more negative attitudes toward IDUs held more stigmatizing AIDS attitudes. Among Blacks, such attitudes explained more variance than did attitudes toward gay men, a pattern opposite to that found among Whites. Moreover, knowing someone who injected illegal drugs was associated with less AIDS stigma for Blacks, but not for Whites. The results suggest that Blacks' and Whites' attitudes toward people with AIDS are informed by their different experiences of the AIDS epidemic.