eplicate in the sample the demographic case profile of the group identified by the Centers for Disease Control as typical of cases of heterosexual AIDS, i.e., mainly Latino or African American mothers.
Citing the difficulties of delivering physical and psychological health care to AIDS-infected families and the social stigma associated with AIDS in general, as well as the concentration of new AIDS cases in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods and populations in particular, the study of parent-adolescent conflicts hypothesized that "sociodemographic factors [e.g., household income, gender, ethnicity], physical health [e.g., overall well-being of parents], and the parents' lifestyle" [e.g., use of controlled substances, safe-sex practices] could affect the stressful and chaotic character and level of conflict and stress in households where there are parents living with AIDS, or PLAs (Rotheram-Borus & Others, 1998, p. 84). Lesar and Maldonado describe the uniquely destructive influence of pediatric AIDS on normal family routine, owing to the chronic nature of the disease and the fact that in many households with pediatric AIDS, at least one adult is likely to have AIDS, which can be transmitted perinatally from mother to child. Pediatric AIDS arrests both ph
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