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Session Title: Culture is Context: The Role of Intersectional Theories in Framing HIV and Substance Abuse Interventions Targeting African American Women
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Panel Session 366 to be held in Wekiwa 7 on Thursday, Nov 12, 3:35 PM to 4:20 PM
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Sponsored by the Social Work TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Jenny Jones, Virginia Commonwealth University, jljones2@vcu.edu
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| Abstract:
This multipaper presentation includes two studies that highlight the need for culturally relevant theories and methods in evaluating HIV and Substance Abuse interventions. Both papers focus on African American women at the margins who simultaneously struggle with high risk of HIV transmission and use of mood altering substances.
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Shaping the Evaluand of HIV Education and Substance Abuse Treatment Using Black Feminist Theory
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| Yarneccia Hamilton, Clark Atlanta University, yhamilton97@aol.com
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Heterosexual African American women who smoke crack cocaine and trade sex for more drugs are the fastest growing population of HIV infected individuals in the United States (CDC, 2007). This study uses the lens of Black Feminist Theory to explore the efficacy of substance and HIV education for incarcerated African American women. The research suggests that incarcerated women are at increased risk of HIV due to risky sexual behaviors for the purposes of acquiring and using illegal substances (AmFAR, 2002; Sterk, 2002). These women are also at greater risk of relapse upon program release (Williams & Larkin, 2007). Historically, evaluations o these interventions place little if any emphasis on the role of context in framing the intervention and the outcomes, especially as they relate to the unique contextual issues faced by African American women. This project explores the role of Black Feminist Theory in informing the conceptualization, design, and evaluation of such programs.
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The Function of the Black Superwoman Myth in Framing HIV and Substance Abuse Evaluation
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| Sarita Davis, Georgia State University, saritadavis@gsu.edu
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The Sojourner Project applies an interpretive framework to explore the degree to which gender, race, and class affects the HIV risk and use of mood alterning substances among 50 African American women living in both low and high burden areas in metropolitan Atlanta. Research suggests that a strictly biomedical framework for HIV and Substance abuse program planning and intervention typically serves to homogenize difference or complexity by, for example, separating race from socioeconomic status and gender as discrete, rather than mutually constitutive, concepts (Gentry, 2007; Mullings, 2005). The contribution of the Sojourner Project to evaluation is that it invites us to understand the relational nature of sexual decision making and substance abuse among dispossed women in a way that conveys a message about the interaction of race, class, and gender, as well as dialectic of oppression, resilience, and resistance (Crenshaw, 1995).
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