Students participating in the study called "Cuidate! (Take Care of Yourself) The Latino Youth Health Promotion Program," were randomly assigned to one of two interventions. The first, a general health promotion intervention, presented Latino cultural values as an important context that supports positive health behaviors and focused on improving diet, exercise and physical activity, while reducing the use of cigarettes, alcohol and drugs.
The second intervention was the HIV-prevention program. It was adapted for Latino youths from a curriculum developed earlier by Jemmott and her research team at the University of Pennsylvania, entitled "Be Proud! Be Responsible!" This program, based on several behavioral theories, emphasizes abstinence and condom use as culturally accepted and effective methods to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV.
Both programs were similar in length and format, consisting of six 50-minute modules delivered on two consecutive Saturdays, and including small-group discussion, videos, interactive exercises and skill-building activities.
In follow-up surveys up to a year after these programs, adolescents in the HIV intervention were less likely to report engaging in sexual intercourse, having multiple partners or having episodes of unprotected intercourse and more likely to report consistent use of condoms than adolescents in the health-promotion class. Also, adolescents in the HIV program who spoke primarily Spanish were more likely to have used a condom at last intercourse and had a greater proportion of protected sex. Students in the HIV program who were sexually inexperienced at the beginning of the study reported fewer days of unprotected sex than similar adolescents in the health-promotion program
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Contact: Karl Leif Bates
batesk@umich.edu
734-764-7260
University of Michigan
7-Aug-2006