Perceptions of behavioral norms related to HIV transmission by people with HIV and by residents of their communities

We examined how people with HIV are both part of and apart from the communities in which they live. We compared perceptions of behavioral norms of 203 people with HIV living in 33 different communities with community-level normative perceptions assessed by surveys of 2444 randomly selected residents of these communities. Participants with HIV perceived behavior that risks the transmission of HIV as injunctively and descriptively more normative than did other community residents. Participants with HIV living in communities in which community residents perceived relatively widespread approval of condom use also perceived these behaviors as injunctively normative, and they perceived relatively low levels of HIV stigmatization. Discussion focuses on how perceptions about "deviant" behaviors may affect the experiences of people whose stigmatized status is assumed to be the result of such behavior.