The Role of Religiosity in Mediating Biopsychosocial Outcomes between African Americans and Caucasians with HIV

Religiosity has been shown to be a resource for many adults with HIV, but may be expressed differently by race. In the 2003 AIDS Alabama state-wide survey, 395 adults with HIV were assessed on a variety of medical and psychosocial measures. Factors were extracted for age, health status, disease duration, education, social support, mood, and religiosity and were specified in separate structural equation models for African Americans and Caucasians, where religiosity mediated the effects of age, education, and chronicity on the biopsychosocial outcomes of health, social support, and mood. African Americans (n = 263) who were older had higher levels of religiosity which was positively associated with social support. For Caucasians (n = 132), religiosity did not mediate biopsychosocial factors. Implications of these findings are posited.