Assessment of a Culturally-Tailored Sexual Health Education Program for African American Youth

Tiffany Zellner Lawrence, Tabia Henry Akintobi, Assia Miller, Elaine Archie-Booker, Tarita Johnson and Donoria Evans
Additional contact information
Tiffany Zellner Lawrence: Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine Prevention Research Center, 720 Westview Drive SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA
Tabia Henry Akintobi: Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine Prevention Research Center, 720 Westview Drive SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA
Assia Miller: McKing Consulting Corporation, 2900 Chamblee Tucker Road, Building 10, Suite 100, Atlanta, GA 30341, USA
Elaine Archie-Booker: Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Drive SW, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA
Tarita Johnson: Wholistic Stress Control Institute, Incorporated, 2545 Benjamin E. Mays Drive, Atlanta, GA 30311, USA
Donoria Evans: ICF International, 3 Corporate Square NE Suite 370, Atlanta, GA 30329, USA

IJERPH, 2016, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: African American youth are affected disproportionately by sexually transmitted infections (STIs), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), and teenage pregnancy when compared to other racial groups. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the To Help Young People Establish (2 HYPE) Abstinence Club, a behavioral intervention designed to promote delayed sexual activity among African American youth ages 12–18 in Atlanta, Georgia. The intervention included 20 h of curriculum and creative arts instruction. Pre- and post-intervention survey data collected from 2008–2010 were analyzed to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. Intervention ( n = 651) and comparison ( n = 112) groups were compared through analysis of variance and multivariate logistic regression models. There was a statistically significant increase in intervention youth who were thinking about being abstinent ( p = 0.0005). Those who had not been engaged in sexual activity were two times more likely to plan abstinence compared to participants that had been previously sexually active previously (odds ratio 2.41; 95% confidence interval 1.62, 3.60). Significant results hold implications for subsequent community-based participatory research and practice that broadens the understanding of the relevance of marriage, as just one among other life success milestones that may hold more importance to African American youth in positioning the value of delayed and responsible sexual activity towards effective STIs, HIV/AIDS, and teen pregnancy risk reduction interventions.

Keywords: African American; adolescents; sexual health; evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/1/14/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/1/14/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2016:i:1:p:14-:d:86098

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().