Preventing Alcohol-Related STD/HIV and Assault

说明(申请人提供)：与其他人口群体相比，女性青少年感染性病和身体攻击的风险很高。由于酗酒与许多不分青红皂白的恋爱和性侵事件有关，减少饮酒，特别是酗酒，可能是预防大学女生感染性病/艾滋病毒和性侵的有效手段。这项拟议的研究将完善和扩大已被证明在减少青少年酒精使用及其相关负面后果方面取得成功的减少饮酒干预措施。这一创新的干预措施包括向父母提供一本手册，提供有关青少年饮酒及其负面后果的信息，并争取父母与他们的青少年交流这些信息。父母在大学入学前的干预似乎可以让年轻人在大学期间免受饮酒的正常压力，从而减少饮酒及其相关的负面后果。通过增加明确处理伙伴歧视和自信问题的内容，可以使这种干预措施在防止负面结果方面更加有效。我们计划为即将入学的大学女生的父母开发一本干预手册，针对饮酒和危险行为。在大学入学前的那个夏天，600名女学生和她们的母亲将被随机分配到三种干预条件中的一种：单纯饮酒，酒精+危险行为，或对照组(不干预)。这些干预措施的效果将通过检查这些女学生在大学第一年报告的饮酒行为、饮酒相关后果、危险行为和负面后果(例如，袭击和性传播疾病感染)来评估。我们将研究干预影响行为的过程，并试图确定可能影响干预效果的学生和家长的人口统计和心理特征。这项拟议的研究是国际独立科学家奖(K02 AA00284)的结果，该奖项支持了Testa博士的工作从基础研究扩展到预防研究。与RFA的目标一致，该项目将开发和测试一个预防计划，旨在减少年轻女性对与酒精有关的攻击和艾滋病毒感染的脆弱性。此外，该项目将通过比较酒精减少干预措施的影响与酒精加降低风险干预措施对结果衡量的影响，帮助了解酒精使用在感染艾滋病毒方面的相对重要性，这是RFA的另一个目标。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Female adolescents are at high risk of STD infection and physical assault relative to other demographic groups. Because alcohol use is implicated in many incidents of indiscriminate relationships and assault, reducing alcohol consumption, particularly binge drinking, may be an effective means of preventing STD/HIV infection and assault in college women. The proposed research will refine and extend a drinking reduction intervention that has proven successful in reducing adolescent alcohol use and its associated negative consequences. This innovative intervention involves providing parents with a handbook that provides information on adolescent alcohol use and its negative consequences and enlisting parents to communicate this information with their teenagers. Parent intervention before college entrance appears to inoculate young people against normative pressure to drink in college, thereby reducing drinking and its associated negative consequences. This intervention may be made even more effective in preventing negative outcomes by adding a component that addresses explicitly issues of partner discrimination and assertiveness. We plan to develop an intervention manual for parents of incoming college women that targets both alcohol use and risky behavior. During the summer before college entrance, 600 female students and their mothers will be randomly assigned to one of three intervention conditions: alcohol only, combined alcohol + risky behavior, or control (no intervention). Efficacy of the interventions will be assessed by examining drinking behavior, drinking related consequences, risky behavior, and negative outcomes (e.g., assault and STD infection) reported by these female students during their first year of college. We will examine processes by which the interventions influence behavior and seek to identify demographic and psychological characteristics of students and parents that may moderate intervention effectiveness. The proposed research is an outgrowth of the PI's Independent Scientist Award (K02 AA00284), which has supported the extension of Dr. Testa's work from basic to prevention research. Consistent with the aims of the RFA, the project will develop and test a prevention program designed to reduce young women's vulnerability to alcohol-related assault and HIV infection. Moreover, the project will help to understand the relative importance of alcohol use in the acquisition of HIV, another of the goals of the RFA, by comparing the impact of an alcohol reduction intervention with the impact of an alcohol plus risk reduction intervention on outcome measures.