EBI Premium

Investigators: Josefina J. Card, Anya Drabkin, Julie Solomon, Sheena Reddy, & Lucy Baden

Welcome to EBI Premium! EBI Premium is a web and Android tablet application that provides additional features and upgrades for subscribers to Sociometrics' evidence-based programs. EBI Premium will help you to implement the program of your choice, collect notes during implementation, and collect outcome data from your participants. To use EBI Premium, you will need to first subscribe to an Evidence-Based Intervention or Program (EBI/EBP), and then second upgrade your subscription to Premium. EBI Premium will enable you to: Access an interactive version of your EBI/EBP for implementation Collect process and outcome evaluation data during implementation Export individual and aggregate evaluation data Create and email questionnaires to participants Take attendance Take notes Conduct up to 5 EBI/EBP implementations and view them on your Premium dashboard BONUS: Includes access to the companion Android tablet app - implement the program and collect evaluation data even offline! Want to learn more about how EBI Premium works? Click here to watch a 10-minute demo of EBI Premium, or here to read the EBI Premium User Guide and explore our Premium features. Want to get started with Premium? View our EBIs/EBPs with an EBI Premium upgrade option here!

Optimizing Partner Notification (OPeN)

Investigators: Tracey E. Wilson PhD, Matthew Hogben, PhD, Nicole Liddon, PhD, William M. McCormack, MD, Steve R. Rubin, & Michael A. Augenbraun, MD

OPEN, a clinic-based patient-centered program, promotes sexually transmitted infection (STI) partner notification in urban, minority populations with high rates of infection. A trained health educator delivers OPEN in 2 one-on-one counseling sessions. The first session (which lasts approximately 30 minutes) is delivered after the initial STI diagnosis, and the second session (which lasts about 10 minutes) is optional, and occurs roughly four weeks later, either in person or by phone. During the first session, the health educator engages in a discussion with the participant about the participant's risky sexual behaviors, and helps the participant to identify potential sexual partners needing notification of the STI. Then the participant and health educator develop a notification plan, and work on skills to improve sexual partner notification through role playing. At the end of the session the participant completes and signs a notification contract. During the second session, the health educator reviews with the participant any progress made on notification, and together they discuss any barriers encountered in notifying partners. Click here to view more detailed information on this program.

Doing Something Different: Group Counseling at STD Clinics to Promote Condom Use

Investigators: Deborah A. Cohen

Doing Something Different, a single-session, one-hour intervention, was designed for use in an inner-city public health clinic, but is appropriate for use in any community setting that provides education or services to at-risk populations. The intervention is led by a health educator, who presents a video on the social acceptability of condom use, demonstrates proper condom-use techniques, and directs a role-playing session in which participants practice negotiating condom use with sexual partners. Click here to view more detailed information on this program.

Sniffer

Investigators: Don C. Des Jarlais, Cathy Casriel, Ray Rodriguez, Andrew Rosenblum, Samuel Friedman, Bruce Stepherson & Elizabeth Khuri

Sniffer is designed to prevent intranasal heroin users from making the transition to injection drug use, and to prevent those who have used injection drugs in the past from returning to that mode of use. Participants attend four 90-120 minute sessions in which didactic materials, group discussions, and situational role play scenarios are employed to communicate information about AIDS, drug use, sexual risk behavior, and drug abuse treatment options. The intervention also seeks to reduce non-injection use of illicit drugs, but advocates harm reduction practices and treatment rather than condemning the behavior of group members who use illicit non-injection drugs. The program's effectiveness was evaluated in a study of 104 intranasal drug users in New York City, each of whom had injected heroin less than 60 times in the previous two years and was HIV and/or hepatitis B negative. Participants were recruited and assigned to test and control groups. All subjects received information about AIDS prior to enrollment. Follow-up interviews at roughly nine months after enrollment collected information about drug use and sexual behavior as well as attitudes towards AIDS. Participation in the intervention was associated with a significantly lower probability of self-reported injection drug use and increased condom use during the follow-up period. (Des Jarlais, Casriel, Friedman and Rosenblum, 1995; Casriel et al., 1990). Click here to view more detailed information on this program.

A Clinic-Based AIDS Education Program for Female Adolescents

Investigators: Vaughn Rickert, Anita Gottlieb, & Susan Jay

This is a single-session group intervention originally targeted toward sexually active girls between 13 and 21 years of age. The session includes a brief lecture on the transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS (based on CDC guidelines), followed by a video explaining the purpose and use of condoms. As the session ends, participants receive an educational booklet reinforcing the program's lessons and coupons that may be redeemed anonymously for an unmarked box of condoms at a local pharmacy. The redemption rate of the coupons provides a measure of the program's impact. A field study of the intervention was conducted with 75 White and African-American females, all of whom were sexually active. Among prior purchasers of condoms, girls who took part in the intervention were significantly more likely to redeem the coupons than were control groups of their peers. Overall, 60% of program participants obtained condoms, a rate 2 1/2 times greater than that recorded in comparable programs without a confidential redemption procedure. Click here to view more detailed information on this program.

Study to Reduce Intravenous Exposures (STRIVE)

Investigators: Steffanie Strathdee, Ph.D., Sebastian Booner, Ph.D., Elizabeth Golub, Ph.D., Mary Latka, M.P.H., Ph.D., Farzana Kapadia, Ph.D., Holly Hagan, M.P.H., Ph.D., Jennifer Campbell, & Richard Garfein, Ph.D., M.P.H

STRIVE is a group-level, clinic-based, behavioral intervention that aims to reduce risky distributive injection practices (e.g., syringe lending and unsafe drug preparation) among young injection drug users who are HCV positive. During six 2-hour sessions, two trained health advisors promote group cohesion and support peer education within the STRIVE group. The health advisors encourage behavior change by teaching peer-education tactics and risk reduction skills. The STRIVE program increases participants. HCV knowledge and risk awareness, problem-solving and risk-reduction skills, and supports sustained behavior change. The effectiveness of the STRIVE program was evaluated using a randomized trial design with a time-equivalent attention-control group. Participants included 418 HCV-positive injection drug users aged 18 to 35 years in three US cities. Participants reported their injection-related behaviors at baseline, and at three- and six-month follow-ups. Compared with the control group, intervention group participants reported a 26% relative reduction of distributive risk behaviors at three months and six months, but were no more likely to cite their HIV-positive status as a reason for refraining from syringe lending. Effects were strongest among intervention group participants who had known their HCV-positive status for at least six months. Peer mentoring and self-efficacy were significantly increased among intervention group participants, and intervention effects were mediated through self-efficacy. Click here to view more detailed information on this program.

Teen Health Project (THP): Community-Level HIV Prevention Intervention for Adolescents in Low Income Housing Development

Investigators: Kathleen J. Sikkema, Jeffrey A. Kelly & the Teen Health Project Team

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, Phere to view more detailed information on this program.

Hot, Healthy, and Keeping it Up!

Investigators: Kyung-Hee Choi, Steve Lew Eric Vittinghoff, Joseph Catania, Donald Barrett & Thomas Coates

This program is a three-hour, single session, culturally appropriate intervention for use with homosexual Pacific Islander and/or Asian men. The intervention is designed to increase positive ethnic and sexual identity in order to help participants acknowledge HIV risk behaviors by discussing negative experiences of being both Asian or Pacific Islander and homosexual (e.g., lack of social support, racism, homophobia). Guided by the Health Belief Model, the theory of reasoned action, and social cognitive theory, facilitators use interactive and group process techniques to address the following four intervention components: 1) development of positive self-identity and social support; 2) safer sex education; 3) eroticizing safer sex; and 4) negotiating safer sex. Of the 258 participants in the original evaluation, most were about 29 years old, Chinese, college-educated, immigrants. Most had been tested for HIV and had reported multiple partners in the three months prior to the intervention. Results of the evaluation indicate that intervention participants were significantly more knowledgeable about HIV-risk reduction, were significantly more motivated about addressing risk, had significantly fewer partners, and were significantly less likely to report unprotected anal intercourse than counterparts in the control group at three-month follow-up. (Choi et al., 1996). Click here to view more detailed information on this program.

Brother to Brother

Investigators: John L. Peterson, Thomas J. Coates, Joseph Catania, Walter W. Hauck, Michael Acree, Dennis Daigle, Bobby Hillard, Lee Middleton, & Norman Hearst

Brother to Brother is a three-session behavioral intervention aimed at reducing HIV infection among African-American gay and bisexual men. Sessions are designed to foster positive identity development, educate participants about HIV/AIDS risk, teach assertiveness, and encourage the sharing of commitments and strategies for risk reduction among group members. Participants gain mastery through role-play, group discussion, and behavioral skills exercises. Click here to view more detailed information on this program.

Focus on the Future

Investigators: Richard Crosby, PhD, Ralph J. DiClemente, PhD, Richard Charnigo, PhD, Gregory Snow, Adewale Troutman, MD

FOCUS ON THE FUTURE, a one-to-one, single session intervention, administered by a lay health advisor, is culturally appropriate for use among young (aged 18-29 years) heterosexual African American men newly diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Based on the behavioral skills model, this one hour long program consists of a personalized discussion, presentation of basic STI/HIV/AIDS and safer sex information, and condom use skills practice. For each individual participant, the FOCUS ON THE FUTURE health facilitator initiates a discussion about the disproportionate HIV/AIDS burden experienced by African American men (illustrated using large posters); condom negotiation skills; and any questions, problems, and concerns the men may have regarding safer sex with their partners. The health facilitator also conducts a demonstration of available condom and lubricant varieties and correct condom and lubrication use. Throughout the session, the advisor encourages the individual to feel good about using condoms, to experience condoms as being compatible with sexual pleasure, to equate condom use with an investment in his future, and to actively protect himself from obtaining a future STI. Men are encouraged to use condoms that they feel fit them well and provide them with a sense of security. Participants receive pocketsize vials of water-based lubricants as well as 12 or more condoms of their choice from a broad selection of brands and sizes. Click here to view more detailed information on this program.