Hiv/std knowledge, attitudes, and risk behaviors in hmong-american adolescents: An unstudied population

This is the first study of HIV / STD knowledge, attitudes, and risk behaviors in the Hmong-American community. This exploratory study describes the self-reported HIV / STD knowledge, attitudes, and risk behaviors of 299 Hmong-American 7th - 12th grade students in nine public junior and senior high schools using bilingual questionnaires. Findings supported our hypotheses that Hmong-American adolescents had relatively low levels of risky behaviors, were significantly less likely to answer HIV / STD culturally specific knowledge and attitude items correctly than general knowledge and attitude items, and that their level of acculturation was positively related to their HIV / STD knowledge and attitudes. In addition, we found that Hmong-American adolescents had higher levels of knowledge about HIV/STD and more desirable attitudes toward HIV / STD than originally predicted. Finally, we found that the age, grade, sex, and marital status of the Hmong adolescents in our study were significantly related to either their HIV / STD knowledge or attitudes.