AIDSQuest: The HIV/AIDS Survey Library
Survey Summaries

A Second Decade of Stigma: Public Reactions to AIDS in the United States (G. Herek and J. Capitanio)

Overview
This survey was designed to measure the pervasiveness of stigmatizing attitudes and beliefs concerning AIDS among the American public. A general adult sample was drawn from the population of all English-speaking adults (at least 18 years of age) residing in households with telephones within the 48 contiguous states. Ten-digit telephone numbers were generated using a stratified two-phase procedure for random-digit dialing. The survey assessed four different manifestations of stigma:

1. Negative feelings toward persons with AIDS.

2. Support for coercive AIDS-related policies.

3. Blame for persons with AIDS.

4. Intentions to avoid a person with AIDS in various situations.

Also assessed were beliefs about HIV transmission through casual contact and beliefs that male homosexual behavior or injecting drug use cause AIDS.

Methodology/validity
To highlight the overall trends in differences between the two population samples, five Likert scales were constructed by summing responses to conceptually related items. For instance, regarding negative feelings toward people living with HIV/AIDS and coercive policies, the responses were treated as a 4-point scale, with low scores indicating that the feeling was not reported or that the respondent disagreed with the item. Similar scales produced for the other issues demonstrated acceptably high reliability.

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This page updated 21 August 2006

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