Family-based HIV Prevention: An Interactive DVD

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall aims of Phase I and Phase II of this SBIR project are to develop and refine an interactive DVD and workbook to reduce sexual risk behavior and substance use among urban black youth who are at high risk for contracting HIV by improving parent-adolescent communication, parental monitoring and the quality of parent/adolescent interactions. The final DVD and workbook, to be used by both parents and adolescents, is based on a face-to-face intervention that has demonstrated efficacy in a NIMH randomized trial (R01MH 63008, Project STYLE). The goal of this Phase II project is to finalize the DVD prototype of the Communication Skills Module, which was developed in Phase I, develop the Information and Parental Monitoring/Risk Reduction Modules, and evaluate the final interactive DVD and workbook, targeting parent- adolescent communication and sexual and substance use risk behavior among high-risk, urban African-American adolescents. MEE (Motivational Educational Entertainment) Productions Inc., a social marketing firm with expertise in urban and ethnic audiences, will continue to partner with Rhode Island Hospital to develop and test this innovative, culturally relevant DVD and workbook. The DVD package will include risk-reduction and parenting messages on two DVDs; one for adolescents ages 13 - 18 and one for the adults in their lives. To inform the design of the DVD package, MEE and RIH will moderate a series of focus groups with African American parents and adolescentsages 13 - 18, along with community-based organizations and service providers in Philadelphia. The final DVD and workbook will focus on: HIV/STD information, adolescent sexual and substance use risk behaviors, assertive communication with parents and partners, and parental monitoring. The DVD and workbook will then be evaluated, through a small-randomized clinical trial, in the final months of the Phase II project. One hundred and seventy African-American parent-adolescent dyads in Providence and Philadelphia will be enrolled and randomized to either the HIV prevention DVD and workbook developed in this project or an attention matched health promotion control DVD and workbook condition, to examine the impact of the HIV prevention intervention, relative to the control condition, on improving adolescent HIV risk attitudes and intentions and parent-adolescent communication/monitoring. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The number of young people contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections continues to grow, with minority populations disproportionately affected. Equipping families to help adolescents make safer sexual decisions can potentially reduce the growing number of annual infections among urban minority communities. This project would translate a highly successful and efficacious face-to-face intervention promoting parent-child communication and parental monitoring to an interactive DVD and workbook format that can be disseminated for use in a variety of settings including schools, homes, and community based organizations.