Education Development Center, Inc. will conduct an intervention study to characterize and address the combined effect of early alcohol use and risky behavior within a population of urban African American and Latina adolescent females who are at high risk for HIV, AIDS, and other infections. Past research by the investigative team has documented that nearly 10% of females in our target population are at risk in 7thgrade and more than half by spring of 10th grade. Although alcohol use is more comparable with national figures, the combination of early alcohol and risky behavior is troubling, yet under-addressed by existing interventions. This randomized experiment will test a theoretically-derived and empirically-grounded """"""""selective"""""""" intervention that specifically targets high-risk young adolescent females. The intervention builds upon a promising strategy for influencing adolescents: parent education. Three parenting mechanisms (PM) shown to influence adolescent risk behavior are targeted: parental monitoring (P-PM), household rule setting (HR-PM), and communication (C-PM). In continuing collaboration with New York City public schools and a community advisory board, the aims are to: (1) Develop a set of three audio-cds to be delivered at intervals over a 6-month period to parents of young adolescent daughters that address alcohol prevention and the link between early alcohol use and risk taking; (2) Enroll 500 parents and their 8th grade daughters and randomly assign families to one of three conditions: (1) an audio-cd intervention focused on prevention of alcohol use; (2) an attention-controlled condition; or (3) a non-attention controlled condition; (3) Conduct a baseline telephone survey of parents to assess parental monitoring (P-PM), household rules (HR-PM), parent-child communication (C-PM) and perceptions of daughters' alcohol and other behaviors; (4) Conduct a baseline survey of adolescent daughters to assess their attitudes and behaviors about alcohol, P-PM, HR-PM, and C-PM; (5) Conduct a 3-month post-intervention telephone survey of parents and test the efficacy of the audio-cd intervention in improving P-PM, HR-PM, and C-PM; (6) Conduct a 3-month post-intervention survey of daughters and test the efficacy of the audio-cd intervention in fostering attitudes and behaviors related to reduced alcohol and risk taking; (7) Examine whether changes from baseline to 3 month follow up in daughters' attitudes and behaviors are explained by changes in P-PM, HR-PM, and C-PM, and whether these three parenting mechanism mediate the relationship between experimental condition and daughters' outcomes. The study has the potential to improve understanding of the link between early alcohol and risky behavior and to provide a proven, selective, female-focused intervention for addressing these risks. The goal is to set young women on a course that protects their health and reduces the burden that problem drinking and HIV disease is taking on African American and Latino communities.
| O'Donnell, Lydia; Myint-U, Athi; Duran, Richard et al. (2010) Especially for daughters: parent education to address alcohol and sex-related risk taking among urban young adolescent girls. Health Promot Pract 11:70S-8S |
| O'Donnell, Lydia; Stueve, Ann; Duran, Richard et al. (2008) Parenting practices, parents'underestimation of daughters'risks, and alcohol and sexual behaviors of urban girls. J Adolesc Health 42:496-502 |
