This grant application is in response to a program announcement by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for Exploratory/Development grant submissions (R21 mechanism) to design and develop interventions. This proposal attempts to intervene with delinquents by building on two previous HIV prevention successes: Project LIGHT, the National Institute of Mental Health's Multisite Prevention Trial (NIMH, 1998), and a 7-session version of Project LIGHT specifically targeted for high-risk adolescents. This project aims to use Project LIGHT with a new population using a different modality (computer delivery). The goal of this proposal is to adapt the Project LIGHT intervention for delinquent youth in Los Angeles County Probation Schools, design a CD-ROM to deliver the intervention, and to conduct a pilot study to examine the acceptability, feasibility, and utility of Project LIGHT with delinquent youth. Adaptation of Project LIGHT for delinquent youth requires identifying strategies for delivering the intervention that are highly attractive to youth (CD-ROM) that are tailored to everyday settings in which youth are served in a cost-effective fashion, and that remain effective in reducing risk behaviors. Phase 1 of the research plan will involve formative research (focus groups and interviews) to determine the characteristics of the intervention that need to be tailored for the new population of delinquent youth. At the conclusion of Phase 1, a CD-ROM computer program will be developed for delivering the intervention. In Phase 2, a pilot study will be conducted in four schools to examine the acceptability, comprehensiveness, quality of the computerized intervention, and the youths' perceptions of the intervention. Youth will be assessed at a baseline interview and followed longitudinally for 3-months. The results of this study will inform researchers and the public health community about the feasibility and acceptability of HIV interventions to be delivered in everyday settings using a computer-based delivery strategy.
| Lindhiem, Oliver; Yu, Lan; Grasso, Damion J et al. (2015) Adapting the posterior probability of diagnosis index to enhance evidence-based screening: an application to ADHD in primary care. Assessment 22:198-207 |
| Lightfoot, Marguerita; Comulada, W Scott; Stover, Gabriel (2007) Computerized HIV preventive intervention for adolescents: indications of efficacy. Am J Public Health 97:1027-30 |
