Psychosocial HIV/AIDS Prevention for High-Risk African American Men: Guiding Principles for Clinical Psychologists

Among African American men who have sex with men (MSM), HIV infection has become an epidemic and requires psychosocial prevention. This population faces racism, HIV discrimination, heterosexism, and hate crime while living with its own internalized homophobia and denial. I discuss the principles for psychosocial HIV prevention. I posit that HIV services need to gather resources to tackle life circumstances of MSM of color; to empower them via social support, acceptance, and integration of their racial and sexual identities; to provide social skill training; to disseminate correct HIV and health information; and to modify the norms of safer sex behaviors. Clinical psychology as a field should collaborate with community psychology, train more African American MSM, and conduct evaluation of culture-specific prevention efforts.