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Wendee M Wechsberg,1–4 Irene A Doherty,1 Felicia A Browne,1,5 Tracy L Kline,1 Monique G Carry,6 Jerris L Raiford,6 Jeffrey H Herbst6 1Substance Abuse Treatment Evaluations and Interventions Research Program, RTI International, Research Triangle Park, 2Gillings Global School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 3Psychology in the Public Interest, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, 4Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, Duke University, Durham, NC, 5Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 6Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA Abstract: The southeastern US sustains the highest high school dropout rates, and gangs persist in underserved communities. African American female adolescents who drop out of school and are gang members are at substantial risk of exposure to severe violence, physical abuse, and sexual exploitation. In this study of 237 female African American adolescents 16–19 years of age from North Carolina who dropped out or considered dropping out, 11% were current or past gang members. Adolescents who reported gang membership began smoking marijuana at a mean age of 13, whereas those who reported no gang membership began at a mean age of 15 years (P

Alexandra M Minnis,1,2 Irene A Doherty,1,3 Tracy L Kline,1 William A Zule,1 Bronwyn Myers,4,5 Tara Carney,4 Wendee M Wechsberg1,3,6,7 1RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, 2School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 3University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA; 4Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, 5Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa; 6North Carolina State University, Raleigh, 7Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA Background: Inequitable gender-based power in relationships and intimate partner violence contribute to persistently high rates of HIV infection among South African women. We examined the effects of two group-based HIV prevention interventions that engaged men and their female partners together in a couples intervention (Couples Health CoOp [CHC]) and a gender-separate intervention (Men’s Health CoOp/Women’s Health CoOp [MHC/WHC]) on women’s reports of power, communication, and conflict in relationships. Methods: The cluster-randomized field experiment included heterosexual couples from a high-density South African township in which neighborhoods were randomized to one of the intervention arms or a control arm that received the WHC only. Participants completed in-person study visits at baseline and 6-month follow-up. We examined group differences using one-way analysis of variance and multivariable regression models.Results: Of the 290 couples enrolled, 255 women remained in the same partnership over 6 months. Following the intervention, women in the CHC arm compared with those in the WHC arm were more likely to report an increase in relationship control (ß=0.92, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.02, 1.83, P=0.045) and gender norms supporting female autonomy in relationships (ß=0.99, 95% CI: 0.07, 1.91, P=0.035). Women in the MHC/WHC arm were more likely to report increases in relationship equity, relative to those in the CHC arm, and had a higher odds of reporting no victimization during the previous 3 months (MHC/WHC vs WHC: odds ratio =3.05, 95% CI: 1.55, 6.0, P=0.001; CHC vs MHC/WHC: odds ratio =0.38, 95% CI: 0.20, 0.74, P=0.004).Conclusion: Male partner engagement in either the gender-separate or couples-based interventions led to modest improvements in gender power, adoption of more egalitarian gender norms, and reductions in relationship conflict for females. The aspects of relationship power that improved, however, varied between the couples and gender-separate conditions, highlighting the need for further attention to development of both gender-separate and couples interventions. Keywords: gender, partner interventions, empowerment, HIV prevention