Abstract

Youth are increasingly at risk for contracting HIV infection, and community-level interventions are needed to reduce behavioral risk.A randomized, controlled, multi-site community-level intervention trial was undertaken with adolescents living in 15 low-income housing developments in five US cities.Baseline (n = 1172), short-term follow-up (n = 865), and long-term follow-up (n = 763) risk assessments were conducted among adolescents, ages 12-17, in all 15 housing developments. The developments were randomly assigned in equal numbers to each of three conditions: experimental community-level intervention (five developments); "state-of-the-science" skills training workshops (five developments); and, education-only delayed control intervention (five developments).At long-term follow-up, adolescents living in the housing developments receiving the community-level intervention were more likely to delay onset of first intercourse (85%) than those in the control developments (76%), while those in the workshop developments (78%) did not differ from control condition adolescents. Adolescents in both the community-level intervention (77%) and workshop (76%) developments were more likely to use a condom at last intercourse than those in control (62%) developments.Community-level interventions that include skills training and engage adolescents in neighborhood-based HIV prevention activities can produce and maintain reductions in sexual risk behavior, including delaying sexual debut and increasing condom use.

View details for Web of Science ID 000232314400010

View details for PubMedID 16135905