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This article describes a quasi-experimental evaluation of a community-based, culturally and ecologically tailored HIV prevention intervention for Mexican American female adolescents grounded in the AIDS risk reduction model. A total of 378 Mexican American female adolescents (mean age = 15.2) participated in either the nine-session SHERO's (a female-gendered version of the word "hero") intervention or a single session information-only HIV prevention intervention. Assessment data were collected at pretest, posttest, and 2-month follow up. Significant improvements across all time points were revealed on measures of self-esteem, condom attitudes, beliefs regarding a woman's control of her sexuality, beliefs regarding sexual assault, perceived peer norms, and HIV/AIDS and STI knowledge. At posttest SHERO's participants were more likely to carry condoms and to report abstaining from vaginal sex in the previous 2 months; and at 2-month follow up they reported using condoms more often in the preceding 2 months and planned on using them more frequently in the coming 2 months. Findings support the development of community-based adolescent HIV prevention interventions that address culturally specific ecological factors.

Investigated predictors of African American adolescent sexual activity, testing an ecological model of risk factors influencing sexual activity. Data collected over three years indicated that risk factors at the personal, familial, and extrafamilial levels of adolescents' social ecology related to being a virgin or not. Males and older adolescents were less likely to be virgins because their parents monitored them less. (SM)

This study explored organizational and contextual factors impacting coalition functioning across 15 community–researcher coalitions that were formed to lower rates of HIV among youth. Mixed-methods (qualitative and quantitative) longitudinal data were collected from both community partners and researchers across three time points, and were analyzed to assess factors associated with initial coalition development and functioning. Specific facilitators of coalition functioning over time included developing group trust and cohesion, creating diverse coalition membership, developing a shared vision, and ensuring clarity of coalition purpose and goals. Specific barriers to coalition functioning over time included experiencing a lack of clarity over member roles and responsibilities, balancing power/resource dynamics between researchers and community partners, balancing coalition building and coalition pace, and experiencing HIV/AIDS-related stigma. Recommendations are offered for how to develop and sustain successful community–researcher coalitions over time in order to address relevant social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fifteen research sites within the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions launched Connect to Protect community coalitions in urban areas across the United States and in Puerto Rico. Each coalition has the same overarching goal: Reducing local youth HIV rates by changing community structural elements such as programs, policies, and practices. These types of transformations can take significant amounts of time to achieve; thus, ongoing successful collaboration among coalition members is critical for success. As a first step toward building their coalitions, staff from each research site invited an initial group of community partners to take part in Connect to Protect activities. In this paper, we focus on these researcher-community partnerships and assess change in collaboration factors over the first year. Respondents completed the Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory at five time points, approximately once every two to three months. Results across all fifteen coalitions show significant and positive shifts in ratings of process/structure (p<.05). This suggests that during the first year they worked together, Connect to Protect researcher-community partners strengthened their group infrastructures and operating procedures. The findings shed light on how collaboration factors evolve during coalition formation and highlight the need for future research to examine change throughout subsequent coalition phases.