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This article discusses African Americans, their being representative of one-third of all cumulative AIDS cases in the U. S., and how prevention and treatment have continued to be problematic because of a general distrust of mainstream social services. Traditional middle class European American intervention treatment models do not consider the barriers to prevention and intervention facing African Americans. Research has emphasized the need for promoting prosocial motives, including re-entry into a moral community, renewed spirituality, self-esteem, and establishment of one's role in the family.

The article presents information on the efforts of a organization in AIDS control. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, the Xchange Point is a nonprofit community-based AIDS services organization founded in 1996 as a street-based outreach and SEP. Trained community health outreach workers have conducted street-based, roving outreach in four areas of Cleveland on a weekly basis since the program's inception. A substance abuse services has been the rise of the harm-reduction model and non- abstinence-based services. Harm reduction is based on the suppositions that drug use will continue to exist for most users and that safer use is always possible. The first syringe exchange program (SEP) was established in the U.S. in 1988 in Tacoma, Washington. There is strong evidence supporting the effectiveness of SEPs with regard to decreased HIV- infection rates, decreased incidence of sharing of injection equipment, and increased frequency of the disinfection of injection equipment.