The proposed research is a five-year longitudinal study of 900 high-risk young people first studied as adolescents in 1984-1985. Our objectives are: (1) to assess the degree of change in behaviors that are associated with risk of HIV infection over the ten year course of this project; (2) to determine the association between behavior change and knowledge and attitudes about AIDS in subjects at varying degrees of risk for HIV infection over the longitudinal course of this project; (3) to search for factors that predispose or protect high-risk young people's participation in behaviors that are associated with risk of HIV infection; (4) to determine the extent to which behaviors that have already placed adolescents at high-risk for HIV infection actually result in seropositivity in young adulthood; and (5) to determine changes in behavior, social relationships and cognitive capacities in subjects who become infected with the HIV virus during the course of this study. The study will consist of individual in-person interviews every other year with three groups of the original sample: those at high risk for AIDS; similar youths at moderate risk: and similar youths at lower risk. In addition, a fourth group composed of the most recent sexual partners of those youths who had sex within the last month would be recruited. A component of this grant proposes to study risk factors in the blood samples of the youths. During each reinterview period, the blood samples of the youths. During each reinterview period, the blood samples would be tested for HIV antibodies and other factors that might increase the youth's risk, such as syphilis and Hepatitis B.
| Stiffman, A R; Dore, P; Cunningham, R M et al. (1995) Person and environment in HIV risk behavior change between adolescence and young adulthood. Health Educ Q 22:211-26 |
| Stiffman, A R; Dore, P; Cunningham, R M (1994) Inner-city youths and condom use: health beliefs, clinic care, welfare, and the HIV epidemic. Adolescence 29:805-20 |
| Cunningham, R M; Stiffman, A R; Dore, P et al. (1994) The association of physical and sexual abuse with HIV risk behaviors in adolescence and young adulthood: implications for public health. Child Abuse Negl 18:233-45 |
| Stiffman, A R; Dore, P; Earls, F et al. (1992) The influence of mental health problems on AIDS-related risk behaviors in young adults. J Nerv Ment Dis 180:314-20 |
| Stiffman, A R; Earls, F; Dore, P et al. (1992) Changes in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome-related risk behavior after adolescence: relationships to knowledge and experience concerning human immunodeficiency virus infection. Pediatrics 89:950-6 |
