Community Participatory Intervention with High-Risk African-American Women

描述（由申请人提供）：为被监禁的非裔美国妇女提供支持的针对性别的住宅释放后项目可能会减少药物使用、艾滋病毒风险行为和心理症状。重要的是要确定可能促进保健服务利用和出狱后更积极的健康结果的环境或干预措施类型。基于社区的参与性研究（CBPR）方法可以通过让社区机构、消费者和研究人员参与研究过程，促进这些被剥夺权利的妇女在社区一级的变化。该项目建立了一个社区咨询委员会，将服务提供者和现有社区联盟的广泛网络联系起来。社区顾问委员会为拟议的研究项目带来了有关被监禁妇女的专业知识。各成员在确定社区资产、衡量需求和制定有效干预措施的战略方面进行了合作，这些干预措施也可能减少再犯和预防疾病传播。结果和指标将在其发生的社会和环境背景下加以审查。CAB分享了其资源，以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、州和地方决策者。支持性康复之家，如牛津之家，通过社会支持在促进健康结果和增加积极健康行为方面可能特别有效（Jason等人，2006年b）。DePaul研究团队和牛津之家社区积极参与了这一提案的开发。本研究将探讨对退出刑事司法系统的非裔美国妇女来说，特定禁欲和一般社会支持的潜在不同作用。将采用随机前测后测实验设计，比较支持禁欲的公共生活环境（即牛津之家条件）和通常的护理条件。我们假设，在所有随访期间，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，增加卫生服务利用率），减少再犯，增加对物质使用的戒断，改善心理功能，并比分配到常规护理条件的妇女获得更高水平的支持。该项目的所有步骤都将在社区咨询委员会积极参与的指导下进行，从而更快地将研究成果转化为社区实践。

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.