Risk Factors for HIV Among Urban African American Youth

描述（由申请人提供）：候选人是一名社会学家，曾获得NIDA的少数民族研究者奖，对社区和环境因素及其与城市地区青少年参与健康危害行为的关系有了解和经验。候选人目前担任研究科学家的社会研究中心（SRC）是成立于1955年的私人非营利机构Friends Research Institute （FRI）的研究园区。该中心促进博士前培训经验，旨在促进行为、公共卫生和公共政策研究方面的职业发展，为行为科学领域有才华的研究生和本科生提供入门级职位。候选人的长期职业目标是成为一名独立的调查员。他想把他的职业生涯集中在开发和测试干预模型上，这些模型将非洲裔美国城市青年和成年人置于艾滋病毒/艾滋病的风险之中。候选人建议由他的主要赞助人Jeannette Johnson博士指导，她是美国原住民，跨文化心理学家，在少数民族社区中与艾滋病毒/艾滋病相关的个人，社会和文化风险和保护因素方面具有广泛的预防研究知识和专业知识。在导师阶段，他还建议在约翰霍普金斯大学彭博公共卫生学院学习HIV/AIDS相关课程，并参加NIH和其他HIV/AIDS相关会议。这项为期三年的横断面研究的主要目的是研究在何种程度上特定的风险和保护因素可以预测高风险的非裔美国青年对艾滋病毒风险的认知和参与危险的性行为。这些年轻人目前在巴尔的摩市另类学习中心（BCALC）学习，他们因暴力行为或其他严重违规行为而被传统公立学校开除，其中许多人从事危险的性行为。一半的参与者将在项目第一年接受评估，其余的将在第二年接受评估。参与者将是200名11至17岁的男女学生，从两个BCALC学校随机选择。评估数据将于每年的1月至5月收集。提出的研究有可能提供对高风险城市非洲裔美国青年对艾滋病毒风险和参与危险性行为的认知相关问题的更好理解。这项研究的结果将对公共卫生领域具有重要意义，因为它填补了这类青年感染艾滋病毒风险方面的重要知识空白。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The candidate is a sociologist, and a former recipient of a Minority Investigator Award from NIDA, with knowledge and experience regarding community and environmental factors and their relationship to youth involvement in health-compromising behaviors in urban areas. The Social Research Center (SRC), where the candidate is currently employed as a research scientist, is the research campus of Friends Research Institute (FRI), a private non-profit institution established in 1955. The Center promotes pre-doctoral training experiences designed to facilitate careers in behavioral, public health, and public policy research, providing entry-level positions for talented graduate and undergraduate students in the behavioral sciences. The candidate's long-term career objective is to become an independent investigator. He would like to focus his professional career on developing and testing intervention models that place urban African American youth and adults at-risk for HIV/AIDS. The candidate proposes to be mentored by his primary sponsor Dr. Jeannette Johnson, a Native American, cross-cultural psychologist, who has extensive prevention research knowledge and expertise regarding individual, social, and cultural risk and protective factors associated with HIV/AIDS in minority communities. During the mentored phase, he also proposes to take courses regarding HIV/AIDS at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at John's Hopkins University and attend NIH and other HIV/AIDS related conferences. The primary aim of the proposed three-year cross-sectional study is to examine the extent to which specific risk and protective factors predict both perceptions of HIV risk and participation in risky sexual behavior among high-risk African American youth. These youth, currently attending Baltimore City Alternative Learning Centers (BCALC), have been expelled from traditional public schools for committing violent acts or for engaging in other serious infractions, with many engaging in risky sexual behavior. Half of the participants will be assessed the first project year and the remainder assessed in the second year. Participants will be 200 male and female students, between the ages of 11 and 17 randomly selected from two BCALC school sites. Assessment data will be collected from January through May during each of the two data collection years. The research study proposed has the potential to provide a greater understanding of issues related to perceptions of HIV risk and participation in risky sexual behaviors among high-risk urban African American youth. Findings from the study will be of significance to the field of public health by filling important knowledge gaps in terms of risk for HIV infection among such youth.