About This Product

TEEN HEALTH PROJECT was developed for adolescents ages 12 to 17 living in low-income housing developments. The purpose of the evaluation study was to determine whether the effects of a community-level HIV risk reduction intervention would be stronger when the intervention targeted change in individual-level risk reduction as well as change in the social and peer normative environment. Participants (n = 1,172) were recruited from 15 housing developments. Developments were randomly assigned to the community-level intervention (5 developments), workshop-only (5 developments), or a control condition (5 developments). Assessments were conducted at baseline, approximately 3 months after completion of the educational sessions, and again approximately 18 months after baseline. At long-term follow-up, adolescents living in the community-level developments were more likely to have remained abstinent than their control group peers (t(1, 10) = 2.22, P< .05). The difference in abstinence rates between the community-level and workshop-only groups approached significance (P = 0.07). At long-term follow-up, condom use rates among control group participants were lower than rates in either the community-level or workshop-only groups. In addition to treatment, higher baseline levels of abstinence self-efficacy (b = 0.18, SE = 0.09; f(1,261) = 4.61; P < 0.05), abstinence outcome expectations (b = 0.42, SE = 0.18; f(1,255) = 5.29; P < 0.05) and utilization of condom-related behavior skills (b = 0.40, SE = 0.10; f(1,255) = 15.62; P = 0.0001) were associated with increased condom use at long-term follow-up. THP is supported by the Office of Adolescent Health (OAH)'s Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) program as an EBI that is medically accurate, age appropriate, and has proven through rigorous evaluation to prevent teen pregnancy and/or associated sexual risk behaviors.