Influences on condom use and the prevention of HIV transmission

Until an effective vaccine becomes available, AIDS will continue to be an ongoing threat to public health in the United States and across the globe. With the public\u27s eye turned toward prevention, promoting condom use as means of reducing new HIV infections has been the focus of much discussion and research. But the availability of condoms as a risk reduction strategy is of little value without widespread adoption, a trend that still demonstrates considerable inconsistency among sexually active individuals. The present research explores how knowledge about HIV, behavioral self-efficacy for condom use, and communication skills are related to condom use and intensions to use condoms in both main and casual sexual partnerships. This research also explores how these variables are related to condom use across characteristics such as race and gender, and potentially inconsistent factors such as relationship status. The findings suggest that the ability to communicate about sexual matters with one\u27s casual partners may be highly influential in an individual\u27s condom use in both main and casual partnerships. The implications of these findings on the further development of HIV/AIDS prevention programs are discussed