HIV Education Needs Among Sudanese Immigrants and Refugees in the Midwestern United States

Abstract

Migrant populations may be particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases and often need special considerations in terms of health care. In particular, migrant populations can be at high risk for HIV infection, in part due to lack of education about disease acquisition. This study evaluated knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about HIV/AIDS as well as risk behavior in the Sudanese immigrant and refugee population of Nebraska (N = 47). The results demonstrated that a significant proportion of individuals from this population are poorly educated about HIV infection, exhibit attitudes and beliefs that may increase their risk for disease acquisition, and create barriers to HIV prevention and care, and engage in high-risk sexual behaviors. Appropriate educational materials are lacking, and there is a pressing need for improved access to culturally appropriate HIV education for this vulnerable population.

HIV/AIDS knowledge and attitudes among West African immigrant women in Western Australia

“…Nevertheless, the results replicate those of similar studies (30,32), resemble findings in the country of origin (1,9,11,13,14,(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26), and provide some insight into issues of HIV-awareness and attitudes toward condom use in the Australian context. Likewise, findings from the convenience sample of Australian women probably do not reflect the full spectrum of HIV knowledge and attitudes in the Australian community because the majority of respondents were highly educated, most had part-or full-time jobs, and all lived in or close to a major capital city.…”

“…The sample size was limited by the funds available for this research. However, as deficits in knowledge about HIV/AIDS were identified in a comparable sample (N = 47) of the Sudanese refugee and immigrant population of Nebraska (32) …”

Correlates of condom use among males in North Sudan

“…3,4 The lack of awareness with regard to HIV/ AIDS is mainly due to insufficient government commitment towards public health education, the weak role of the media and educational policies with no sex education in the curriculum at all educational levels. 5 Due to this lack of sufficient public health education, the use of condoms has been viewed more as a method of contraception than a method for the prevention of STIs and HIV/AIDS. Despite the health and social problems caused by HIV, condom use is generally not popular in Africa.…”

Knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about HIV/AIDS of Sudanese and Bantu Somali immigrant women living in Omaha, Nebraska

“…Systems factors in Omaha may have affected the women's ability to access voluntary counseling and testing for HIV. Often, structural, cultural, and linguistic barriers; stigma; discrimination; xenophobia; and exploitation decrease or discourage access to HIV/AIDS education or health services [6,[15][16][17][18][19][47][48][49][50][51][52][53].…”

“…Additionally, immigrants are more likely than the general population to have poor access to HIV education or health services [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Immigrants are people who go into a foreign country on their own volition to establish permanent residence; refugees are those who are uprooted from their homes when fleeing danger or persecution and who receive special status in order to be given asylum in a host country [15,16]. Although the psychological profile of refugees has little in common with immigrants, there is a tendency to group immigrants and refugees together.…”