"I Heard He Got the Package": African American Men's Experiences of Living with HIV/AIDS

Authors

Lisa M. Baumgartner, Texas A&M UniversityFollow

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences of African American men living with HIV/AIDS. The questions guiding the study were: (a) How do African American men incorporate HIV/AIDS into their identities? and (b) How do contexts affect the incorporation process? Data from this study was taken from a larger study concerning HIV/AIDS identity incorporation. Twelve self-identified African American men living with HIV/AIDS participated in 1.5-2 hour in-depth interviews. Participants traversed through a four or five step incorporation process. In addition, a disclosure process occurred. The contexts that influenced the incorporation process included the interpersonal context (e.g., support and stigma), sociocultural context, (e.g., race, class, sexual orientation), the temporal context (historical time), and situational context (e.g., a personal history of chemical dependency) (Ickovics, Thayaparan, & Ethier, 2001). These contexts intersected and affected participants’ integration of the HIV/AIDS identity into the self. Study findings have implications for HIV/AIDS educators and health professionals

Keywords

HIV/AIDS, African American Men, Identity Incorporation, Contexts

Acknowledgements

Aspects of this paper were presented at the 2013 Hawaii International Conference on Education

Publication Date

7-21-2014

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2014.1105

Recommended APA Citation

Baumgartner, L. M. (2014). "I Heard He Got the Package": African American Men's Experiences of Living with HIV/AIDS. The Qualitative Report, 19(29), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2014.1105