The primary aim of the proposed project is to advance scientific knowledge about research/community partnerships that can serve as the foundation for local adaptation, delivery, and testing of evidence-based prevention programs for inner-city African American and Latino adolescents. More specifically, we propose to examine factors that influence urban parents willingness to collaborate in the delivery of an intervention designed to reduce adolescent pregnancy, STDs and HIV infection among inner-city minority youth (Be Proud! Be Responsible!; Jemmott, Jemmott & Fong, 1998). In addition, we intend to test the impact of a community mentorship and training component on the implementation of Be Proud! Be Responsible! within urban middle schools, as well as, on youth sexual risk intentions and behavioral outcomes. The proposed project will involve a sample of urban parents (n=300) representing 10 inner-city middle schools that will be trained to deliver Be Proud! Be Responsible! in order to support health promotion and risk reduction efforts within their community. Parents nested within their child's randomly selected school (150 parents within 5 schools considered the experimental condition block of schools will receive a community collaborative training meant to increase theoretically derived characteristics, including: 1) positive intention to become a HIV educator; 2) HIV prevention knowledge; 3) salience of involvement in prevention activities; 4) positive attitudes, normative beliefs and expectancies about HIV prevention efforts and 5) self-efficacy around community participation and leadership. In addition, these 150 parents will receive mentorship from community parents who are currently involved in local HIV prevention efforts in order to reduce any environmental obstacles to program delivery. The remaining 150 parents nested within 5 separate randomly selected schools (the comparison condition block of schools) will receive standard preparation and training of Be Proud! Be Responsible! Following the training in each of the two study conditions, parents will then be involved in the delivery of the program to 400 youth (6th and 7th graders) in one of the schools in their respective block (not their child's school) in each of the two study conditions (total n=800).
The specific aims of the present study are: 1) to examine factors that influence the extent to which urban parents collaborate with university-based researchers and middle schools in the delivery of an evidence-based adolescent sexual risk behavior prevention program; 2) to develop and test the impact of a community collaboration training and mentoring system for an existing sexual risk reduction intervention on delivery within urban middle schools; 3) to test the impact of the community collaboration training and mentoring on adolescent sexual risk taking, We believe that the proposed project could result in substantial knowledge regarding the necessary ingredients to create and sustain community/university partnerships focused on promoting youth health and preventing health risk, as well as, the potential added benefits of community collaboration on prevention program outcomes. The long-term goal of this proposed research is to develop a practical, effective, and cost efficient community """"""""add on"""""""" component that can be used across a number of health outcomes.
| Chowdhury, Jenifar; Alicea, Stacey; Jackson, Jerrold M et al. (2013) Collaboration With Urban Parents to Deliver a Community-Based Youth HIV Prevention Program. Fam Soc 94:150-156 |
| Holloway, Ian W; Traube, Dorian E; Schrager, Sheree M et al. (2012) Effects of Sexual Expectancies on Early Sexualized Behavior Among Urban Minority Youth. J Soc Social Work Res 3: |
| Walker, M P (2004) Issues surrounding sleep-dependent memory consolidation and plasticity. Cell Mol Life Sci 61:3009-15 |
