HIV program shows promise for low-income teens
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HIV prevention programs that involve more of a teenager’s everyday world may have a particularly strong influence over behavior down the road, researchers have found.
Their study, of 12- to 17-year-olds living in low-income housing developments, found that a “community-level” HIV prevention program was especially effective at keeping kids from having sex, as well as encouraging condom use among those who did.
The program included two workshops on HIV prevention held in the housing development, for both teenagers and parents, followed by ongoing projects meant to reinforce the prevention message.
Eighteen months after the study’s start, teenagers in the program were more likely than those who received other forms of HIV education to still be virgins, or to have used a condom the last time they had sex.
Dr. Kathleen J. Sikkema and her colleagues reported the findings in a recent issue of the medical journal AIDS.
The point of involving teenagers’ communities was to “empower” kids and create an environment that would encourage them to avoid risky behavior, according to Sikkema, an associate professor at the Yale University School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut.
The age at which kids start having sex is related to a number of health and social concerns—including unwanted teen pregnancy and the risk of sexually transmitted diseases other than HIV, according to Sikkema. So, she told Reuters Health, community-based programs aimed at HIV could have additional benefits.
The study included teenagers at 15 housing developments in five U.S. cities. Some developments served as the “control” group, with residents being invited to a standard HIV education meeting. Another group was offered two workshops on cutting HIV risk through abstinence or condom use.
A third group received the community-level program. After attending the workshops, teenagers in this group nominated peers who then helped coordinate ongoing projects in the housing development—including community activities and “small media” projects, like newsletters that reinforced the HIV prevention message.
Eighteen months into the study, teenagers in the community program were more likely to have remained abstinent or to use condoms than those in the control group. Teens in both groups that attended the workshops reported higher condom use than their peers in the control group—about 77 percent in each workshop group, versus 62 percent in the control group.
The findings, Sikkema and her colleagues conclude, point to the value of extending HIV prevention efforts over time, as well as involving teenagers’ larger social environment.
This may take more time and resources, Sikkema said, but it could also offer a “broader benefit.”
SOURCE: AIDS, September 23, 2005.
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