Alliance Healthcare Foundation

Recent reports indicate that AIDS is increasing among Asian and Pacific Islander populations. Data from 249 women sampled from nine Asian and Pacific Islander communities in San Diego County from 1993 to 1995 were examined to determine what factors contributed to perceived susceptibility to HIV infection and having had an HIV test. Thirteen percent of women sampled were classified as high risk for HIV infection, while half of the women reported perceived susceptibility to HIV. Years in the United States and ethnicity appeared to be effect modifiers of the relationship between risk behaviors and perceived susceptibility. In the multivariate model, high school education or greater, age of 30 or more, participation in risk behaviors, and knowing an HIV-positive person were significantly associated with perceived susceptibility. Reliability of self-reported sexual behavior was somewhat low, while the reliability of data relating to injection drug use and needle sharing was high.

Asian Pacific Islander Americans (A/PI), one of the United States’ smallest subpopulations at 3% of the total U.S. population (1990 U.S. Census, in Lum, 1995), is also the fastest growing minority group in the United States. Three factors contribute to its rapid increase in size. The Immigration Act of 1965, which did away with country quotas and promoted the reunification of immigrant families, the steady influx of Southeast Asian refugees since 1975, and the contemporary stream of Asian immigrants into the United States swelled the A/PI population 141% between 1970 and 1980. Between 1980 and 1990, the population continued to grow and doubled in size from 3.5 million to more than 7 million (Burr & Mutchler, 1993; Lin-Fu, 1988). With this continued rate of growth, the U.S. Asian Pacific Islander population is estimated to reach 10 million by the year 2000 (Lin-Fu, 1988).