ABSTRACT
Common sense tells us that discriminatory attitudes towards people who are HIV seropositive are a consequence of inaccurate knowledge about HIV transmission and means of protection. This chapter examines whether there is a relationship between knowledge and discrimination. It explores the possible existence of factors influencing both the level of knowledge about the disease and the degree of tolerance of persons with HIV or AIDS (PWHAs). The chapter also explores the possible influences of three other factors, namely, mistrust, subjective perception of risk, and knowing a PWHA, on both knowledge of HIV/AIDS and discriminatory attitudes. It looks at knowledge by means of two aggregate indices, one of which refers to erroneous knowledge of HIV transmission routes and the other to erroneous knowledge of means of protection. Subjective risk of infection and knowledge of the disease were relatively independent.
