AIDS: risk behaviors among rural Mexican women married to migrant workers in the United States.

ABSTRACT

PIP: Studies have found that migration and return migration between Mexico and the US among temporary migrant workers contributes to the spread of HIV/AIDS among Mexico's poor, especially in rural communities. The available information about the sexual practices of migrant workers in and out of Mexico is, however, very limited. Indeed, the authors were able to find just one report dealing with the sex practices of seasonal migrant workers in the US. That report describes seasonal migrant workers as maintaining an active, but largely unprotected bisexual life with fellow workers or prostitutes while in the US. Returning home, typically once per year, they tend to have unprotected sexual intercourse with their wives. 100 rural Mexican women of mean age 35.9 years living in Mexico and a mean educational attainment of 5.2 years of schooling, with an average of 5 children, who had been married for an average of 16.2 years to immigrant temporary workers to the US were interviewed to learn what information they had regarding AIDS and which high-risk behaviors they had for the transmission of HIV. The women had active sex lives with their spouses. Most of the women interviewed had at least some knowledge about AIDS. Although the women held some misconceptions, they had mostly accurate AIDS-related information. Approximately one-third of the women felt at risk for AIDS, mostly because they doubted their husbands' fidelity, or because in the last five years they had donated blood, received a blood transfusion, or received an intramuscular or intravenous injection. Study results are discussed.