African American women are at increased risk of HIV transmission through heterosexual contact. HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among African American women between 25 to 34 years of age, and many of these women were likely infected while in college. Four focus groups were conducted with African American students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in order to learn about the college dating environment and how it influenced women's risk of HIV infection. We used constant comparison techniques and visual display matrixes to analyse the data. Students identified the gender ratio imbalance of more women to men on campus as a key element of the campus dating environment and described how it places women at an increased risk for HIV infection. Primary consequences of this gender ratio imbalance were men having multiple female sexual partners during the same time period and women complying with men's condom use preferences. HIV preventive intervention programmes at HBCUs must address the gender ratio imbalance and its consequences to reduce women's risk of contracting the infection.

This pilot study used a community-based participatory research approach to recruit and train five licensed cosmetologists from two beauty salons to deliver health promotion messages to their customers. Stylists attended a 4-hr workshop to develop skills for delivering targeted health messages. Educational displays in the salons reinforced these messages. Qualitative and quantitative methods assessed satisfaction, readiness to change, and self-reported health behavior changes in customers immediately postintervention and at 12 months. Trained stylists reported they would continue delivering health messages after the 7-week pilot was completed; 81% of customers read the educational displays, and 86% of customers talked with their cosmetologist about the Bringing Education and Understanding to You Project. At 12 months, 55% of customers reported making changes in their health because of the conversations they had with their cosmetologist. Customers who spoke more often with their cosmetologists about health also reported a higher percentage of self-reported behavior changes. It appears that trained licensed cosmetologists are effective in promoting health messages to their customers.

Though African American youth in the south are at high risk for HIV infection, abstinence until marriage education continues to be the only option in some public schools. Using community-based participatory research methods, we conducted 11 focus groups with African American adults and youth in a rural community in North Carolina with high rates of HIV infection with marked racial disparities. Focus group discussions explored participant views on contributors to the elevated rates of HIV and resources available to reduce transmission. Participants consistently identified the public schools’ sex education policies and practices as major barriers toward preventing HIV infection among youth in their community. Ideas for decreasing youth’s risk of HIV included public schools providing access to health services and sex education. Policymakers, school administrators, and other stakeholders should consider the public school setting as a place to provide HIV prevention education for youth in rural areas.

ObjectiveSymptoms of endometriosis, including pelvic pain, back and nerve pain, and gastrointestinal pain, often begin in adolescence. Yet, research on the experience of these debilitating symptoms among young people is scarce. Of particular concern is the influence of adolescent girls’ social context. This study qualitatively examined how, among adolescents, endometriosis and symptoms suggestive of endometriosis is perceived at the family, peer/school and community/society levels.DesignEight focus groups were conducted; vignettes were used to elicit participants’ perceptions of factors that may shape girls’ experiences of endometriosis. Data were analysed using constant comparison analysis.ParticipantsAn ethnically diverse sample of girls and boys ages 14–18 (n=54) residing in New York City.ResultsFifteen themes emerged and were distilled to eight cross-cutting factors that influence perceptions of endometriosis at different levels of the ecological model: distrust of community healthcare providers, societal stigma of menstruation, peer stigma of endometriosis symptoms, distrust of school healthcare providers, lack of endometriosis knowledge among peers and school personnel, inequitable gender norms, invisibility of symptoms and the stigma of teen sex among parents. Further, these factors may compound symptoms’ impact on individual girl’s social, educational and emotional well-being.ConclusionsFindings underscore the importance of understanding the social environment of girls experiencing symptoms suggestive of endometriosis and educating and engaging their peers, family and school personnel to create a supportive, informed social climate. Efforts should specifically include stigma reduction campaigns targeted towards female and male adolescents.

African American women suffer disproportionately from a wide range of health disparities. This article clarifies how beauty salons can be mobilized at all levels of the social-ecological framework to address disparities in health among African American women. The North Carolina BEAUTY and Health Project is a randomized, controlled intervention trial that takes into account the unique and multilevel features of the beauty salon setting with interventions that address owners, customers, stylists; interactions between customers and stylists; and the salon environment. The authors make explicit the role of the political economy of health theoretical perspective for understanding important factors (social, political, historical, and economic) that should be considered if the goal is to create successful, beauty-salon-based interventions. Despite some important challenges, the authors contend that beauty salons represent a promising setting for maximizing reach, reinforcement, and the impact of public health interventions aimed at addressing health disparities among African American women.