Competence-Enhancement Prevention Program Effects on Later Risky Sexual Behavior

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal is designed to examine the long-term effects of an evidence-based competence-enhancement universal school-based prevention program that was delivered to urban minority youth attending middle schools in New York City. The long-term effects of the intervention on alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use will be tested, as well as whether the effects generalize to a variety of sexual risk behaviors among participants as young adults. Previous research has shown that the model prevention program, Life Skills Training (LST), produces positive behavioral effects on substance use and other outcomes with effects lasting until the end of high school in suburban White samples. The intervention teaches young people important social and cognitive skills that can help them master various developmental tasks. This may in turn increase resilience to the social, environmental, and psychological forces that promote and maintain a variety of negative health behaviors that share similar risk and protective factors. Several alternate hypothesized mechanisms that are closely tied to the LST intervention content will be tested to investigate how participation in the intervention may reduce later risky substance use and sexual risk behaviors. Recently published data from a separate sample of suburban White young adults are presented showing that LST slowed growth in alcohol and marijuana intoxication rates during adolescence, which in turn predicted a later reduction in HIV risk behaviors, as defined as having sex while intoxicated. In the proposed study, follow-up telephone interviews will be administered to the cohort of young adults that participated in a randomized trial of LST during adolescence. The sample represents an understudied group of predominantly minority, economically disadvantaged youth in New York City. Participants will be approximately 3500 young adults ages 21-23 who will be interviewed 5 years following their most recent data collection. Individuals in 20 treatment schools received the 30 session prevention program; students in 21 control schools did not. Participants were surveyed annually through the 12th grade with measures of risk behavior and psychosocial risk factors. The proposed study extends work on the long-term effectiveness of LST and offers the potential of identifying an intervention that produces long-term effects for multiple outcomes. The proposed study also provides critical information on the etiology of risk behaviors during the transition to young adulthood in an understudied population of urban minority young adults who have been followed since early adolescence.