TY - JOUR
T1 - Micro-social structural approaches to HIV prevention
T2 - A social ecological perspective
AU - Latkin, Carl A.
AU - Knowlton, A. R.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by funding from the National Institute of Drug Abuse and National Institute of Mental Health (grants DA016555 and MH066810).
Copyright:
Copyright 2008 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2005
Y1 - 2005
N2 - To be effective and sustainable, HIV-prevention interventions need to be sufficiently powerful to counteract prevailing social norms and diffuse through the targeted community to provide social reinforcement for behaviour change. Social structural and environmental factors are major influences on HIV-related behaviours yet the dearth of conceptualization and operationalization of these factors impede progress in intervention development. In this paper we propose a social ecological perspective to intervention and highlight relevant theories from social psychology and organizational behaviour literatures. We examine social networks and social settings as micro-structural and environmental influences on HIV risk behaviours, social identities and norms, and as important targets for HIV-prevention intervention. Intervention approaches are proposed that target networks and behavioural settings and provide participants with socially meaningful and rewarding behavioural options that are consistent with valued prosocial identities or roles. Examples are presented on how such an approach has been utilized in prior HIV prevention interventions, including our social network-oriented intervention that trained disadvantaged former and current illicit drug users to conduct peer outreach. We describe how behavioural interventions may enhance or introduce new prosocial identities and social roles, and that network members may confer social approval to reinforce these identities and roles, leading to sustained behavioural risk reduction and changes in risk behaviour norms.
AB - To be effective and sustainable, HIV-prevention interventions need to be sufficiently powerful to counteract prevailing social norms and diffuse through the targeted community to provide social reinforcement for behaviour change. Social structural and environmental factors are major influences on HIV-related behaviours yet the dearth of conceptualization and operationalization of these factors impede progress in intervention development. In this paper we propose a social ecological perspective to intervention and highlight relevant theories from social psychology and organizational behaviour literatures. We examine social networks and social settings as micro-structural and environmental influences on HIV risk behaviours, social identities and norms, and as important targets for HIV-prevention intervention. Intervention approaches are proposed that target networks and behavioural settings and provide participants with socially meaningful and rewarding behavioural options that are consistent with valued prosocial identities or roles. Examples are presented on how such an approach has been utilized in prior HIV prevention interventions, including our social network-oriented intervention that trained disadvantaged former and current illicit drug users to conduct peer outreach. We describe how behavioural interventions may enhance or introduce new prosocial identities and social roles, and that network members may confer social approval to reinforce these identities and roles, leading to sustained behavioural risk reduction and changes in risk behaviour norms.
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U2 - 10.1080/09540120500121185
DO - 10.1080/09540120500121185
M3 - Review article
C2 - 16096122
AN - SCOPUS:22144488100
SN - 0954-0121
VL - 17
SP - S102-S113
JO - AIDS Care - Psychological and Socio-Medical Aspects of AIDS/HIV
JF - AIDS Care - Psychological and Socio-Medical Aspects of AIDS/HIV
IS - SUPPL. 1
ER -