Though HIV risk reduction interventions delivered by health experts have generally proven successful, their success has not significantly reduced the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic among African American adolescent girls, especially low-income girls from single mother headed homes, who are at high risk for contracting HIV. While several researchers have advocated that active parental involvement may have a more profound effect on HIV risk reduction, they also note that parents have inadequate skills to assist their adolescents. Few programs have tested the effectiveness of preparing mothers with the knowledge and skills needed to assist their daughters to develop HIV risk reduction behavior.
The specific aim i s to examine systematically over a two-year period the effectiveness of the Mother/Daughter HIV Risk Reduction Intervention in increasing daughter's self-reported HIV risk reduction behavior: delay of sexual activity and if sexually active, either refrain from sex or consistently use condoms and have fewer sex partners. A split-piloted repeated measures design will be used to compare the treatment intervention, the Mother/Daughter HIV Risk Reduction Intervention (MDRR), with two control groups: the Health Expert HIV Risk Reduction Intervention (HERR) and the Mother/Daughter Health Promotion Intervention (MDHP). Guided by the African American Daughter HIV Risk Reduction conceptual framework that is based on social cognitive theory, theory of reasoned action, womanist theory, black feminist thought, African womanism, and bioecological development theory, the research utilizes a convenience sample of low- income inner city adolescent females who range in age from 11-14: 184 mother/daughter pairs in MDRR, 184 mother/daughter pairs in MDHP, and 184 daughters in HERR. The interventions will be randomly assigned to one of three demographically similar but geographically distinct study settings. The adolescents' mothers deliver the content in MDRR and MDHP and the research staff delivers the content in HERR. The content for MDRR and HERR focuses on HIV risk reduction skills while the content for MDHP focuses on nutrition and exercise. Mothers receive intensive group training from the research staff before they tach in a group setting the content to their daughters. Mother/daughter pairs and daughters will be assessed at pre- and post intervention and biannually for 24 months. Multiple logistic regression, multiple linear regression, and proportional hazard models will be used to analyze the data.
| Dancy, Barbara L; Crittenden, Kathleen S; Ning, Hongyan (2010) African-American adolescent girls' initiation of sexual activity: survival analysis. Womens Health Issues 20:146-55 |
| Dancy, Barbara L; Hsieh, Yu-Li; Crittenden, Kathleen S et al. (2009) African American Adolescent Females: Mother-Involved HIV Risk-Reduction Intervention. J HIV AIDS Soc Serv 8:292-307 |
| Dancy, Barbara L; Crittenden, Kathleen S; Freels, Sally (2006) African-American adolescent females' predictors of having sex. J Natl Black Nurses Assoc 17:30-8 |
| Dancy, Barbara L; Crittenden, Kathleen S; Talashek, Marie L (2006) Mothers' effectiveness as HIV risk reduction educators for adolescent daughters. J Health Care Poor Underserved 17:218-39 |
