4.3 Aids prevention among latino teens: the role of family  (Page 2/9)

An abundant bibliography on the Latino family in the U.S. has served as a support network for its members in a variety of stressful situations. In contrast with this, the Latino family among its adolescent and young members accounts for an HIV/AIDS rate of infection of at least five points (19-21%) over the national average (14%), only inferior to that of African-American adolescents and young people. This brings about the necessity to study the impact of acculturation of Latino families to the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture and the new styles of family life in the North American society in depth, since among the indicated responsible factors for this serious problem is the crisis of the traditional American nuclear family demonstrated by the increasing divorce rate.

Most of the investigation, however, has centered on the negative impact rather than on the sexual risk behavior and, in general, on the devious conduct of adolescents, which has conjugal, parental, and intergenerational conflict on one hand, and the situations of poverty, perceived discrimination, residential segregation, and low educative level on the other hand. It is not clear why preventive processes of reinforcing the forms of family life that can be translated into strategies of preventive and educative intervention are not equally studied. Perhaps it is because, partly, it is easier to study individuals and families in clinical or treatment situations than those in naturalistic situations of the daily life. Nevertheless, the study of preventive mechanisms of sexual risk behavior and, in general, of devious conduct of adolescents is important in spite of the apparent failure that appears as high rates of HIV/AIDS among Latinos.

The main object of this study, consequently, is double: (a) an evaluation of the so-called “Latino family concept” with the purpose of detecting the strong and weak points of its socializing function, and (b) an evaluation of the acculturation process of the Latino family to the North American culture. 

 It is clear that, when studying the preventive roll of the Latino family, we are opting for a healthy, and not pathogenic, conception of the individual, family, and public health. That is to say, we are interested in, like Antonovsky (1987), understanding the forces that can contribute to prevent risky conducts, whether they are sexual or drug consumption, frequently associated to those with the purpose of devising and implementing strategies of preventive intervention. The prevention has been recently called the step-daughter of medicine and public health, by an editorialist of New York Times, since it receives little attention in comparison with the essential and ample therapeutic field.

But the study of the Latino family in the U.S. and, especially, the analysis of their values and preventive factors of sexual risk behavior, take us to consider the acculturation process that affects these families and to evaluate their impact on their operation and performance of their socializing function. Our objective when analyzing family acculturation is triple: (a) to analyze that type of acculturation first of all that we will provisionally call pro-active; that is to say, that supposes a dynamic attitude on behalf of the Latino family. This, besides receiving the impact of the forces and values of the dominant culture, adopts, on the one hand, conducts of active incorporation of elements of this culture and, on the other hand, consciously cultivates elements of its culture of origin until conforming a new model of “acculturated pro-active” Latino family or, if desired, bicultural; (b) From a panoramic of the epidemiologist situation of HIV/AIDS, the sexual risk behavior and premature pregnancies among Latino adolescents and young people, I will try to elaborate an etiological or causal model composed of a series of hypotheses, that mainly include the characteristics or elements of the acculturation process that harness (or, on the contrary, debilitates) the preventive socializing function of these conducts of the Latino family; (c) From our approach of clinical psycho-sociology, I will study the underlying theories to the most effective programs of preventive intervention of sexual risk behaviors and the obtained empirical findings in the evaluation of its results. These programs sometimes coincide with different sexual education classes that are offered in the United States of cross-sectional or parallel scholastic curriculums aimed for the adolescent population in general and, on several occasions, to the Latino adolescents in particular. I will try to review those scarce programs that demonstrate a greater sensitivity and cultural adaptation and that promise to be more effective when being applied in its present version or in an improved version that considers the findings of our etiological investigation.