The Context of HIV Risk Among Drug Users and Their Sexual Partners

having bleach available.” Similar statements preceded questions about
condom use and anal intercourse.
The hypothesis concerning questions asked late versus early in the
interview was predicated on the belief that rapport develops between an
interviewer and a respondent in the course of an interview, increasing the
comfort level of the respondent and thereby making it more likely that the
respondent will reveal unfavorable information. While the literature on
order effects reveals a mixed pattern of findings (Sudman and Bradbum
1974; Bradbum and Sudman 1979), the authors’ experience working with
IVDUs suggested this would be the case.
Table 8 shows the results of the experiment with interview formats. The
long questions elicited significantly higher levels of reported borrowing
of syringes and a higher reporting level of lifetime practice of anal
intercourse. They appeared to have little impact, however, on selfreported
condom use. Order (early versus late) effects were observed for
only one variable, condom use for the previous 30 days; respondents
asked this question late in the interview were more likely to disclose
condom use. This finding is difficult to interpret, but it may have been
related to an association of condoms with loose sexual morals, making it
less likely that respondents would admit to using them early in the
interview. There were no significant interactions between the long versus
short and early versus late manipulations.
Matching Gender of Interviewers and Respondents
In a separate experiment, the authors randomized male and female
respondents to male and female interviewers to determine whether
responses to questions about sexual behavior might be influenced by the
gender of interviewer, respondent, or both. Although Sudman and
Bradbum’s (1974) review of the literature suggested the characteristics of
interviewers and respondents have little effect on responses to questions
about behavior, an apparent exception is situations in which
interviewer/respondent characteristics are related to the subject matter.
Table 9 shows the results of the randomized experiment. There were no
statistically significant main effects of interviewer gender. In two trends,
women respondents were less likely to acknowledge to a female
interviewer that they had vaginal intercourse but more likely to report
using condoms consistently. Other patterns were evident but not
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