Factors That Influence HIV Risk among Hispanic Female Immigrants and Their Implications for HIV Prevention Interventions

Table 1

Factors that influence HIV risk among hispanic female immigrants in Durham, Wake, and Orange counties, NC, USA.

Factor	Illustrative quotation
Lack of HIV and AIDS knowledge	“Also, for the Latino culture when I invite somebody, come in, come in to testing for HIV. They say no, I don’t have the AIDS. No I don’t have AIDS. They think it’s the same, HIV and AIDS.”
	“… if I know you have AIDS, you know, everybody thinks that if I look at you, I am going to get it, you know. If I touch you I am going to get it, you know?”
Traditional gender roles and condom use	“Yeah, you hear it all the time, “Why don't you use a condom?” [and the Hispanic woman would say] “Because my husband don't like it.”
	“… the women who are most at risk [are]… the ones who know that their husband has had sex with prostitutes on the weekend, or goes out drinking, and they know that he is having sex with her and they just, keep their mouth closed, because talking is riskier and they don’t have a way of getting out of it anyway …”
Multiple sexual partnerships and unprotected sex	“And I find that the men who have families in their home town will want to come in and get tested before they go home. So you know, they'll want the results because they are going back to [Latin American Country] in a couple of weeks and they will want to get the test done, so, of course that means that they have been doing, they have been having unprotected sex here, but they want to be fine for their wives when they go home, or make sure that they are.”