Community Participatory Intervention with High-Risk African-American Women

描述（由申请人提供）：针对性别的住宅释放后计划，为被监禁的非洲裔美国妇女提供支持，可以减少药物使用，艾滋病毒风险行为和心理症状。重要的是要确定类型的设置或干预措施，可能会促进卫生服务的利用和更积极的健康结果后，从监狱释放。基于社区的参与性研究方法可以通过将社区机构、消费者和研究人员加入研究过程，促进社区一级为这些被剥夺权利的妇女做出改变。该项目设立了一个社区咨询委员会，将广泛的服务提供者网络与现有的社区联盟联系起来。社区咨询委员会为拟议的研究项目带来了与被监禁妇女有关的专门知识。成员们合作制定战略，以确定社区资产，衡量需求，并制定有效的干预措施，这些措施也可能减少累犯和预防疾病传播。将在其产生的社会和环境背景下审查成果和指标。监狱事务局分享其资源，根据需求评估编制被监禁妇女的概况。调查结果将分发给社区成员、机构以及州和地方决策者。支持性康复之家，如牛津之家，可能在促进健康结果和通过社会支持增加积极的健康行为方面特别有效（Jason等人，2006年b）。DePaul研究团队和牛津大学社区一直积极参与制定这一提案。本研究将探讨禁欲的具体和一般的社会支持的非洲裔美国妇女谁是退出刑事司法系统的潜在不同的作用。将采用随机前测-后测实验设计，比较支持禁欲的社区生活环境（即，Oxford House条件）恢复到通常的护理条件。我们假设，分配到牛津之家条件的妇女将报告减少艾滋病毒风险行为和更好的健康结果（即，保健服务利用率提高）、累犯率降低、戒断药物使用率提高、心理功能改善，以及在所有随访间隔期获得的支持水平高于分配到常规护理条件下的妇女。该项目的所有步骤将由社区咨询委员会的积极参与指导，并导致更快地将研究结果转化为社区实践。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Gender-specific residential post-release programs that provide incarcerated, African American women with supports may reduce substance use, HIV risk behaviors, and psychological symptoms. It is important to identify the types of settings or interventions that might promote health service utilization and more positive health outcomes following release from jail. Community based participatory research (CBPR) methodology can promote community level changes for these disenfranchised women by joining community agencies, consumers and researchers in the research process. This project established a community advisory board that links an extensive network of service providers and existing community coalitions. The community advisory board brings expertise with incarcerated women to the proposed research project. Members have collaborated on strategies to identify community assets, measure needs and develop effective interventions that may also reduce recidivism and prevent disease transmission. Outcomes and indicators will be examined within the social and environmental context in which they occur. The CAB has shared its resources to develop a profile of incarcerated women based on needs assessments. The findings will be disseminated to community members, agencies and state and local policy makers. Supportive recovery homes such as Oxford House may be particularly effective in promoting health outcomes and increasing positive health behaviors through social support (Jason et al., 2006b). The DePaul research team and the Oxford House community have been active participants in developing this proposal. The present study will examine the potentially different roles of abstinence-specific and general social support for African-American women who are exiting the criminal justice system. A randomized pretest-posttest experimental design will be employed that compares communal-living settings supportive of abstinence (i.e., Oxford House condition) to a usual care condition. We hypothesize that women assigned to the Oxford House condition will report reduced HIV risk behaviors and better health outcomes (i.e., increased health services utilization), decreased recidivism, increased abstinence from substance use, improved psychological functioning, and higher levels of support than women assigned to the usual care condition at all follow-up intervals. All steps in this project will be guided by active involvement of the community advisory board and lead to more rapid translation of research findings into community practice.