Gender in Context: Women And HIV/STI Risk Behavior in the Dominican Republic and Haiti

Jennifer Toller Erausquin, University of California, Los Angeles

Hispaniola is the area of the Americas hardest-hit by HIV/AIDS. In the island’s two countries, Haiti and the Dominican Republic (DR), half of new infections are among women, and poor and rural women are at highest risk. Although prior Caribbean research has explored family structure, gender roles, and HIV/STI risk, no comparative study to date has examined these links in Haiti and the DR. Using recent, nationally-representative data, this paper examines how characteristics of women and their sexual partnerships are associated with women’s HIV knowledge and reports of condom use at last sex. The research questions examined include: 1) What are the structural, economic, and gender role characteristics of sexual partnerships of Haitian and Dominican women? 2) Which characteristics of women and their sexual partnerships are associated with HIV knowledge and preventive behavior? 3) Is the association between partnership characteristics and HIV knowledge and behavior mediated by women’s relative power?