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Factors associated with the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth were qualitatively examined to better understand how these factors are experienced from the youths' perspectives. Largely recruited from LGBTQ youth groups, 68 youth participated in focus groups (n = 63) or individual interviews (n = 5). The sample included 50% male, 47% female, and 3% transgender participants. Researchers used a consensual methods approach to identify negative and positive factors across 8 domains. Negative factors were associated with families, schools, religious institutions, and community or neighborhood; positive factors were associated with the youth's own identity development, peer networks, and involvement in the LGBTQ community. These findings suggest a pervasiveness of negative experiences in multiple contexts, and the importance of fostering a positive LGBTQ identity and supportive peer/community networks. Efforts should work towards reducing and eliminating the prejudicial sentiments often present in the institutions and situations that LGBTQ youth encounter.

Increased awareness of the importance of tailoring interventions to participants' cultures has focused attention on the limited generalizability of a single test of an intervention to determine efficacy. Adaptation is often necessary to replicate interventions across cultures. This produces a tension between fidelity to the original intervention and adaptations necessary to make the intervention relevant to the culture and circumstances of participants. This article discusses issues that arise during the course of replication, with illustrations from a replication to test the efficacy of an HIV prevention intervention for youth, using a randomized controlled design. Analysis of the issues raised leads us to suggest that a "science of replication" needs to be developed.

Although there are now several adolescent HIV and STD preventive interventions of demonstrated efficacy in the literature, little is understood about the portability of these interventions. This study replicated Stanton's Focus on Kids intervention, developed for inner city African American adolescents, in a different population, transferring it to a multicultural city. Despite careful replication of the original study's procedures, youth in the preventive intervention condition of the replication study did not improve in attitudes, perceived norms, self-efficacy, or intentions toward sexual initiation, condom use, or abstinence compared with a carefully matched control condition. We discuss several possible reasons for this failure to replicate, concluding that the most likely reason is the lower rates of sexual activity among youth in the replication city.

Objective: Six items were administered to a multiethnic sample of 435 middle school--age participants in a group-delivered safer sex intervention to determine their reliability and validity. Method: Exploratory analyses were followed by confirmatory factor analyses, and then correlations of scale scores with theoretically related variables were computed. Results: Findings favored a unidimensional scale with high internal consistency (with as few as two and as many as five items). Scale scores were generally related to other constructs as expected. Conclusions: The items show evidence of reliability and validity. In addition to the items' use in peer group research, the findings have implications for practice in terms of group leader training and facilitation, and the items' use as assessment tools. (Contains 6 tables and 1 figure.)

Investigated individual characteristics and peer influences related to adolescents' sexual behavior, considering gender and sexual experience. Students reported on intentions to engage in sexual activity and use condoms in the next year, amount of pressure to engage in sexual activity, and perceptions about the number of their peers engaging in sexual activity. Responses differed by gender and sexual experience status. (SM)

Compared self-administered diaries and telephone interviews as ways of collecting data from 100 adults and adolescents in a survey of drinking, drug use, and sexual activity. Outlines advantages of each method and the higher personnel costs of telephone interviews. (SLD)