Youth Living with HIV as Peer Leaders |
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Authors: | G Cajetan Luna Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus |
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Institution: | (1) University of California, Los Angeles;(2) Department of Psychiatry, Division of Social and Community Psychiatry, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90024 |
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Abstract: | Community-based service providers often hire youth living with HIV (YLH) as peer leaders for delivering HIV education to uninfected adolescents. Life narratives were collected from 44 YLH during a hypotheses-generating two-year ethnographic study. About 30% of the youth were employed as peer educators. While 60% of the 44 youth had a lower-class background, only 23% of the peer leaders were lower class. One-fifth of the sample were female, but more than one-half of the peer leaders were female. After identifying and categorizing difficulties experienced by the peer leaders, a frequency count of each theme was conducted. Issues about professional boundaries were evident in 38.5% of the youth's narratives, indicating conflicts in their roles as peer leaders; 23% of the youth engaged in substance use and sexual behaviors that placed themselves and uninfected youth in their peer educator programs at risk; and 8% of the youth reported relapse while peer leaders. The observations suggest reconsideration or restructuring of existing peer-education models that employ YLH. |
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Keywords: | young people HIV/AIDS empowerment service delivery peer-led programs |
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