This project responds to PAS-03-168 which seeks to recruit and retain w omen and minorities for HIV/AIDS research trials. The Sisters Teaching Options for Prevention project (STOP) has two goals: it will enroll and retain a severely difficult to reach population of women--poor, inner city, female arrestees--who, despite their high risk, have been largely overlooked for HIV/AIDS research to date. Secondly, it will initiate strategies to correct barriers to participation in research, a recent goal of NIAID. The methods for recruitment, retention and intervention are based on this team's decade and a half of community based behavioral interventions aimed at reducing high risk behaviors. Grounded in the Health Belief Model, the proposed peer-delivered case management intervention provides the tools to facilitate self-directed change. Our community-based research consistently shows four key barriers to high risk women's participation in research: lack of transportation, fear and distrust, misperceptions of and risks for disease, and a research community that favors healthier populations perceived to be """"""""more compliant"""""""". Because the rate of HIV risky behaviors is highest among this group of women both locally and nationally, interventions for them at this critical juncture are imperative.
The aims of the STOP project are to: 1. Adapt a culturally-relevant, gender-specific, community-based, theoretically-driven Peer Partnered behavioral intervention for a randomized clinical trial (RCT) to reduce HIV risk behaviors, and facilitate access to needed services and research protocols. 2. Reach a difficult to recruit population of women--female offenders--in need of HIV/STD testing, counseling, and medical and behavioral interventions. 3. Enroll these women into this RCT, and retain them with high response rates, comparing a standard intervention to a Peer Partnered Case Management Intervention (PPCMI). 4. Assess the effectiveness of the Peer Partnered Case Management Intervention at 3 and 6 months to facilitate access to needed services, to reduce barriers to service access, to reduce high risk behaviors, to increase knowledge of HIV and other STDs, and to improve trust in and understanding of research involvement. 5. Disseminate the PPCMI model and findings locally, nationally and internationally. ? ?
