AIDSQuest: The HIV/AIDS Survey Library
HIV Research Domains: Topic J Social and Community Identity

Overview
There are a number of social and contextual factors that influence HIV-related behaviors. Interpersonal and community-level factors shape an individual's perception of the world around them, as well as directly influence their behaviors. One important factor is societal norms about appropriate sexual behavior. Another is the confidence that a group feels toward enacting a certain behavior, such as preventing HIV in the community, called collective efficacy. Attention has also been directed at factors that address closeness or trust among people or groups, sometimes called social capital or connectedness or community identity; while each have somewhat different definitions, they address similar issues. Recently, HIV programs have attempted to address these community-level factors directly, and evidence is emerging that addressing these issues will also affect HIV risk and prevention outcomes.

Measurement issues
Each of the social and community identity factors is somewhat theoretically different, and questions about each factors are asked in specific ways. Depending upon the goals of the study, one or all of the social and community identity factors can be addressed. If the goal of an HIV program is to build community action toward HIV prevention, for example, questions directly addressing this factor should be asked, such as the community's perception of its ability to work together toward HIV prevention in the community.

Social norms can be considered acceptable beliefs and behaviors as defined by society. They are social rules and regulations. It is important to distinguish between perceived social norms and actual social norms—a person's belief that a norm is widely accepted will influence that individual's behavior even if this norm is not actually so widespread. Different and conflicting norms can be held by different sub-groups as well. For example, norms against sex before marriage can be held by most people in the community, but norms in support of sex before marriage can be held by an individual's peers or close friends. Norms questions are usually phrased as general statements about acceptable beliefs or behaviors—for example, "It is acceptable for a husband to beat his wife under certain circumstances"—or as beliefs held by specific sub-groups—"My close friends think that I should go have an HIV test."

Connectedness and community identity are related concepts but not the same. These concepts are being used most often to explore the associations between a feeling of closeness or solidarity with your community and the ability to enact HIV prevention behaviors such as the negotiation of condom use. Connectedness addresses feelings of closeness with important others, such as parents or teachers, and is most commonly used in studies on youth. Typical connectedness statements include: "I feel close to my parents." Community identity addresses the perception that a person belongs to a community or trusts other members of the community. Typical community identity statements include: "I trust other women at the brothel with personal information" or "I trust other women at the brothel to help me if I am in trouble." 

Collective efficacy can be defined as the confidence a group feels about performing a specific behavior (or the perception of a community member about the group's ability to perform a behavior). Collective efficacy is similar to self-efficacy, but on a group level. For example: "How confident are you that the community can work together to prevent HIV in your community?"

Social capital can be defined as the networks, norms and trust that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives. Social capital is operationalized around two milieus: sociocultural milieu (degree of interaction within members of a social circle) and institutional infrastructure (presence of community organizations and their ability to act on behalf of the community).

As with other types of questions, it is important to keep comparability in mind when designing a survey. This is especially true if you are going to ask similar questions in the same survey—to measure similar but not identical constructs, collect more than one round of data (e.g., pre- and post-test surveys), or if you want to compare your results to other studies. Questions that are worded differently cannot be directly compared.

Examples of questions relating to these social and community identity factors have been selected from the questionnaires below:

1. Social norms

• Horizons—HIV-associated Violence: Implications for HIV Counseling and Testing Programs
• Horizons—Programming for HIV Prevention in Thai Schools
• UCSF CAPS—Condom Use Among Hispanics
• NORC—GSS Survey
• MEASURE—Zambia Sexual Behavior Survey

2. Connectedness and community identity

• UNC—National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (ADD Health) Wave I
• Horizons—Community Development Approaches to Sex Work Interventions
• Horizons—Promotion of Community Identification and Participation in Community Activities in a Population of Sex Workers in Svay Pak, Cambodia

3. Collective efficacy and social capital

• Johns Hopkins University/Center for Communication Programs—Congregation Study in Ghana
• Horizons—Community Development Approach to Sex Work Interventions