According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Latinos now comprise 16% of the general population as they continue to be one of the fastest-growing populations in the United States. However, according to recent CDC data, Latinos also account for a disproportionately high number of total new AIDS cases. Rates of AIDS among U.S. Latinos are second only to African Americans, and about 3.5-times higher than for non-Hispanic Whites. Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS increases with ethnic and racial minority status that is so often conflated with socioeconomic status. Additional factors, such as gender, sexual orientation, and stigma, also increase vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and require us to think comprehensively about the unique structural-environmental, social and cultural factors that frame risk for HIV for U.S. Latinos.
This book, written by leading authorities on theory, research, and practice in preventing HIV with diverse Latino populations and communities, responds to the diminishing returns of the behavioral model of HIV risk by deconstructing the many social ecological contexts of risk within the Latino experience. Each of the chapters explores the most innovative thinking and original research on the prevention of HIV for a comprehensive span of subgroups and situations, including: preventing HIV in LGBT Latinos through community involvement and AIDS activism; in migrant laborers by scaling up community and cultural resources; in adolescent Latinas by facilitating communication with their mothers about sex; by decreasing the racism, homophobia, and poverty often experienced by Latino men who have sex with men; in transgender Latinas by decreasing familial, peer, and social rejection, and by providing structures of care at local, state, and national levels; and in Latinas by improving their economic autonomy as well as improving gender-equity ideologies among men.
This is a timely and urgently needed effort by the best researchers and interventionists in the field today. Latino-serving agencies and professionals, as well as the growing number of Latino-focused HIV prevention researchers, graduate students, and faculty, will find this an invaluable resource, reference, and guide.