A major public health need is to bridge the gap between the current state-of-the-art in prevention targeting drug use, sexual activity, and AIDS and commercially available curricula which are either unproven or known to be ineffective. This Phase I SBIR application requests 6 months of support to develop and test commercially viable AIDS prevention curriculum materials based on strategies proven to be effective in preventing drug use and premature or unprotected sexual activity. Thus, this project would provide a commercial application of information obtained over a decade of prevention research. Through a series of well- defined stages, prevention materials grounded in theory and based on past empirical studies will be developed, reviewed, and subjected to focus group testing. Results will be tabulated and evaluated; revisions based on these findings will be incorporated into the final version of the curriculum. The resulting product will be an attractive and easy-to-use set of AIDS prevention materials for middle/junior high school students which can be marketed to schools in the United States and Canada.
