ABSTRACT
Rural areas face unique challenges with regard to HIV/AIDS, both in terms of prevention and treatment. These challenges are complicated by the fact that rural areas in general are more likely to condemn deviant behavior and are more likely to enforce social norms in order to maintain the current social order (Moses and Bruchner, 1980). This is especially true of rural, predominately African-American communities. One major obstacle to proactive work in both prevention and treatment is the fundamentalist religious value base and the belief system about homosexuality that characterizes many sectors of the African-American community as well as sectors of the dominant culture. The power of this value base is intensified in rural areas where there is a large African-American population and where the church is the dominant social institution. Nowhere in the United States is this more apparent than in the Delta region of Mississippi and Louisiana. Because of the comparatively high percentage of rural African Americans infected with HIV/AIDS, it is important to provide a model of practice which is culturally compatible with this population. However, the proposed model also can serve communities that are neither predominantly African American, nor predominantly rural, but which are conservative in religious and moral values. The model could also be adapted to work through social institutions other than the church.
