While the first case of AIDS was not identified in Viet Nam until 1990, the rate of the disease has increased at an alarming rate over the past decade. It is currently estimated that 1 percent of the population is HIV positive and nearly half of those infected are between the ages of 15 and 20 years. The number of adolescents affected by HIV/AIDS strongly suggests the need for developing prevention programs targeting this population. At the same time as the HIV/AIDS epidemic has spread throughout Viet Nam, social and economic changes have affected employment, education, access to health care, and in-country migration. In the past five years, Vietnamese have had significantly more contact with the West including access to media, tourism, and increasing numbers of Vietnamese emigrants returning after years of exile. The research will be based in a political-economic theory of culture with an emphasis on the relationships between individual, socio-cultural, and historical representations and definitions of gender, life-stages, and class. Within this framework of culture, the research will focus on young men and women's perceptions of and engagement in protective and risk behaviors for HIV/AIDS, communication between youth and parents, peer relations and communication, and health-seeking behaviors of adolescents. The research will include two sites in Viet Nam: Ha Noi and its inner suburbs and Khanh Hoa Province (Nha Trang City and rural areas in the Western and Northern areas of the Province). The five year study is a three-phase project including the following: 1) qualitative research with Vietnamese adolescents, their parents, community leaders, and health care providers on gender roles and relations, experience and perceptions of """"""""western culture"""""""", adolescents' engagement in risk and protective behaviors, and their perceptions, attitudes and knowledge of HIV and other STDs; 2) the development and administration of a quantitative survey instrument for adolescents; and 3) development of a gender specific HIV prevention program for adolescents based on the """"""""Focus on Kids"""""""" program, including the development of educational modules for parents and health care providers. A three-prong intervention will be implemented and evaluated to compare outcomes for participants randomized into one of three programs: 1) standard Vietnamese """"""""Focus on Kids"""""""" curriculum; 2) a gender-specific Focus on Kids curriculum; or 3) the gender-specific curriculum plus parent and health care provider modules.
| Kaljee, Linda M; Green, Mackenzie; Lerdboon, Porntip et al. (2011) Parent-youth communication and concordance between parents and adolescents on reported engagement in social relationships and sexually intimate behaviors in Hanoi and Khanh Hoa Province, Vietnam. J Adolesc Health 48:268-74 |
| Lerdboon, Porntip; Pham, Van; Green, Mackenzie et al. (2008) Strategies for developing gender-specific HIV prevention for adolescents in Vietnam. AIDS Educ Prev 20:384-98 |
| Kaljee, Linda M; Green, Mackenzie; Riel, Rosemary et al. (2007) Sexual stigma, sexual behaviors, and abstinence among Vietnamese adolescents: implications for risk and protective behaviors for HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and unwanted pregnancy. J Assoc Nurses AIDS Care 18:48-59 |
