• Sophia A Hussen, Danielle Gilliard, Cleopatra H Caldwell, Karen Andes, Rana Chakraborty, and David J Malebranche.
• Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, 1518 Clifton Rd NE, Atlanta, GA, 30329, USA, sophia.ahmed.hussen@emory.edu.
• J Urban Health. 2014 Aug 1; 91 (4): 776-92.

AbstractYoung black men who have sex with men (YBMSM) are experiencing high and rising rates of HIV infection, more than any other age-risk group category in the USA. Contributors to HIV risk in this group remain incompletely elucidated. We conducted exploratory qualitative interviews with 20 HIV-positive YBMSM aged 17-24 and found that father-son relationships were perceived to be important sociocontextual influences in participants' lives. Participants discussed the degree of their fathers' involvement in their lives, emotional qualities of the father-son relationship, communication about sex, and masculine socialization. Participants also described pathways linking father-son relationships to HIV risk, which were mediated by psychological and situational risk scenarios. Our thematic analysis suggests that father-son relationships are important to the psychosocial development of YBMSM, with the potential to either exacerbate or attenuate sexual risk for HIV. Interventions designed to strengthen father-son relationships may provide a promising direction for future health promotion efforts in this population.

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