HIV Prevention and Partner Abuse: Developing an Intervention for Adolescent Girls

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This K01 Career Development Award proposes to establish a rigorous academic foundation for a research career devoted to developing and testing novel interventions for reducing HIV risk for adolescents. Thematically, the K01 will address the social context of HIV risk by integrating effective theory-based adolescent HIV prevention with promising partner abuse prevention strategies, emphasizing promotion of healthy relationships. It uses family planning clinics as a venue for providing a skill-based, culturally-tailored HIV and partner abuse prevention educational and advocacy program for African American girls living is economically disadvantaged circumstances. Partner abuse, which significantly increases risk for HIV, disproportionately affects low income African-American adolescent girls, as does HIV. Critical to this project is the candidate's demonstrated ability to conduct HIV/STD research in partnership with minority communities, a long term engagement in interdisciplinary scholarship aimed at improving health and a 20- year history as a primary care provider. However, to meet her long term career objective she requires additional instruction and mentorship in 6 key areas: 1) Methods for developing theory-driven, culture- specific, developmental^ appropriate curricula in HIV prevention intervention; 2) Design and evaluation of RCT prevention programs with specific considerationsfor reducing HIV risk associated with partner violence among adolescent girls;3) Advanced skills in statistical analysis, particularly techniques relevant to intervention research;4) Study in HIV and intimate partner violence among adolescents, with special attention to racial, economic and gender disparities; 5) Responsible conduct of research with particular attention to legal and ethical considerations for adolescent HIV and partner abuse issues;6) Manuscript preparation skills. The research plan is divided into two phases, both guided by social cognitive and gender theory. In phase 1 we will conduct focus groups and individual interviews in order to develop and tailor the HIV/partner abuse intervention for adolescent girls and in phase 2 we will evaluate the initial acceptability and feasibility of this intervention in a limited RCT. Over the 5 years of the award, instruction, training, mentorship, and applied experiences are expected to significantly enhance the candidate's skills and expertise as a researcher and also contribute greatly to launching an independent research program.