The survey's findings on these issues and more provide one of the most detailed pictures to date of what Californians know and believe about HIV and AIDS. Joel Moskowitz, director of UC Berkeley's Center for Family and Community Health, presented the results of the California 2000 AIDS Knowledge, Attitudes, Beliefs and Behaviors Survey today (Tuesday, Nov. 12) at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.

Fifty percent or more of the Californians who participated in the survey said the following five policies are effective and should receive state funding:

• Providing clean needles to injection drug users in the community (62 percent)
  
• Providing condoms to prisoners (62 percent)
  
• Providing clean needles to injection drug users in prison (54 percent)
  
• Requiring doctors and clinics to report cases of HIV to the state health department (52 percent)
  
• Requiring HIV tests for pregnant women (50 percent)

The survey also found that 67 percent of Californians support HIV reporting through the use of a unique code. Health care providers and clinics in California began using a non-name code to report HIV cases in July 2002. The code includes information on the patient's gender, age, a four-digit alphanumeric code derived from the patient's last name and part of his or her social security number. The new rules are meant to comply with a 2004 federal deadline for all states to establish an HIV tracking system.

The center conducted the survey for the state's Office of AIDS to examine the prevalence of risk behaviors, identify socio-economic differences in knowledge and beliefs, and measure public support for key policy issues. More than 2,500 adults 18 and over throughout the state were randomly called over a 10-week period between April and June 2000. Of those called, 1,739 people completed the 70-question interview, which was given in English or Spanish.

The survey's co-authors include Assunta Ritieni and Maya Tholandi, research scientists at the Office of AIDS, and Bethany Young Holt, a research epidemiologist at UC Berkeley's Center for Family and Community Health.

Overall, the majority of respondents answered correctly when asked key questions to assess their knowledge of HIV and AIDS. For instance, 87 percent of adults know that homosexuals are not the only ones who need to worry about contracting AIDS, and 83 percent know that people infected with HIV could look and feel fine and still be capable of spreading the disease.

However, while 93 percent of adults were aware that an HIV-infected woman could infect her unborn child, only 22 percent knew that medication was available to prevent the pregnant woman from infecting her baby.

Some differences in perception about HIV emerged among ethnic and socio-economic groups, and some groups were less likely than others to get tested for HIV. "We found that Hispanics were more likely to perceive themselves to be at moderate or high risk of HIV infection, and considered themselves to be 'little informed' of ways to prevent HIV," said Moskowitz. "Yet, they were also less likely to have been tested for HIV. The same is true for high school dropouts."

Moskowitz said these findings are of concern because people who feel at risk for HIV infection, even if they are not at risk, may develop a sense of fatalism. "People can mistakenly believe that they will inevitably get HIV, and therefore think it's not worthwhile to take steps to prevent infection," he said.

"These misconceptions about HIV transmission may result in unnecessary anxiety and discrimination against HIV-infected persons," Ritieni added.

Survey co-author Tholandi noted the challenges of developing statewide health education programs. "California is an extremely complex state with a huge degree of diversity," she said. "Among certain populations more than others there may be a need to revisit some of the basic transmission messages that were common in the early stages of the epidemic."

Interviewers also asked about the occurrence of risk behavior for HIV infection within the prior 12 months, such as having more than six sex partners, injecting non-prescription drugs, or engaging in high-risk casual sex. The survey found that 2.4 percent of respondents said they had engaged in at least one risk behavior in the previous 12 months. Of those, men were significantly more likely than women to engage in at least one risk behavior.

"Although the percentage may seem small, 2.4 percent of the state's adult population translates into 640,000 people engaged in risky behavior," said Moskowitz. "That's a major concern for public health officials."