PASHA Program Archive ST24

ABAN AYA Youth Project: Preventing High Risk Behaviors Among African American Youth in Grades 5-8
Brian Flay, DPhil, Sally Graumlich, EdD, CHES, & the ABAN AYA Team

ABAN AYA is an Afrocentric social development curriculum instructed over a four-year period, beginning in the fifth grade. The ABAN AYA name is drawn from two Ghanaian words: ABAN (fence) signifies double/social protection; AYA (the unfurling fern) signifies self-determination. The purpose of ABAN AYA is to promote abstinence from sex, and to teach students how to avoid drugs and alcohol, and how to resolve conflicts non-violently.

ABAN AYA was developed to address multiple problem behaviors such as violence, substance abuse, delinquency and sexual activity, simultaneously in a long-term intervention specifically for African American youths in grades five through eight. The longitudinal evaluation of the program involved 12 schools in the metropolitan Chicago area between 1994 and 1998.

At baseline, 1153 fifth graders participated in the pencil-and-paper assessment. All participants were African American. Follow-up assessments were conducted at the conclusion of grades five through eight.

At study conclusion, there were no significant intervention effects for girls. For boys, however, ABAN AYA significantly reduced the rate of increase in violent behavior (by 35% compared with controls), provoking behavior (41%) school delinquency (31%) drug use (32%), and recent sexual intercourse (44%). ABAN AYA also improved the rate of increase in condom use (95%) as compared to the health education control condition.