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HIV Information Avoidance, HIV Stigma, and Medical Mistrust among Black Sexual Minority Men in the Southern United States: Associations with HIV Testing

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Abstract

Uptake of HIV testing is a critical step in the HIV prevention and treatment care cascade. Barriers to HIV testing, however, remain and innovative research in this area is warranted to improve uptake of testing. As such, we investigated the role of HIV information avoidance - a novel construct potentially related to HIV testing. We analyzed this construct in relation to other factors known to impact HIV testing, namely HIV stigma and medical mistrust. Multiple linear regression analyses indicated that HIV information avoidance was negatively associated with HIV testing, while medical mistrust was positively associated with HIV testing. HIV testing stigma was not associated with HIV testing. This work contributes to the developing literature on HIV information avoidance and its relationships with HIV stigma and HIV testing uptake. Further, these findings can inform HIV testing interventions which often do not focus on HIV information avoidance. Future research on the mechanisms of information avoidance that are amenable to intervention, and the temporal ordering of the relationship between information avoidance and HIV testing is warranted.

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Data are available upon request.

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Funding

This study was funded by National Institutes of Health grants R01DA053168, R34MH115798, R01MH109409, K01DA047918, T32MH074387, and T32MH019139. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota, 1985 Buford Ave St. Paul, Minneapolis, MN, 55108, USA

    Kay A. Simon

  2. HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University, New York, New York State, NY, USA

    Redd Driver

  3. Department of Human Development and Family Sciences Storrs, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Taylor Rathus, Ayeisha Cole, Jolaade Kalinowski, Ryan J. Watson & Lisa A. Eaton

Authors
  1. Kay A. Simon
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  2. Redd Driver
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  3. Taylor Rathus
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  4. Ayeisha Cole
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  5. Jolaade Kalinowski
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  6. Ryan J. Watson
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  7. Lisa A. Eaton
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Contributions

Kay A. Simon – conceptualization, data analysis, writing; Redd Driver, Taylor Rathus, Ayeisha Cole and Jolaade Kalinowski – writing and editing; Ryan J. Watson – conceptualization, editing; Lisa A. Eaton – data collection, primary investigator of the study, editing.

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Correspondence to Kay A. Simon.

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The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interests (or competing interests).

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This study was approved by the University of Connecticut Institutional Review Board. All participants represented in this study consented to participate and to have their individual data used in this manuscript.

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Simon, K.A., Driver, R., Rathus, T. et al. HIV Information Avoidance, HIV Stigma, and Medical Mistrust among Black Sexual Minority Men in the Southern United States: Associations with HIV Testing. AIDS Behav 28, 12–18 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-023-04218-6

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