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Reductions in HIV Risk Among Runaway Youth

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Abstract

Runaway youth are 6–12 times more likely to become infected with HIV than other youth. Using a quasi-experimental design, the efficacy of an HIV prevention program was evaluated over 2 years among 2 groups of runaways: (1) those at 2 shelters who received Street Smart, an intensive HIV intervention program, and (2) youth at 2 control shelters. Street Smart provided youth with access to health care and condoms and delivered a 10-session skill-focused prevention program based on social learning theory to youth. Prior to analysis of the intervention's outcomes, propensity scores were used to identify comparable subgroups of youth in the intervention (n = 101) and control conditions (n = 86). Compared to females in the control condition, females in the intervention condition significantly reduced their unprotected sexual acts at 2 years and alcohol use, marijuana use, and the number of drugs used over 12 months. Male adolescents in the intervention condition showed significant reductions in marijuana use over 6 months compared to control youth. Adolescent HIV prevention programs must proactively identify mechanisms for maintaining behavior change over the long-term, and innovative research designs are needed to allow examination of agency-level interventions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Los Angeles, California

    Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus, Juwon Song & Martha Lee

  2. Institute for AIDS Research, National Development and Research Institutes, New York

    Marya Gwadz

  3. Department of Child and Adolescent Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Ronan Van Rossem

  4. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Standford, California

    Cheryl Koopman

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  1. Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus
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  2. Juwon Song
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  3. Marya Gwadz
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  4. Martha Lee
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  5. Ronan Van Rossem
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  6. Cheryl Koopman
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Correspondence to Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus.

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Rotheram-Borus, M.J., Song, J., Gwadz, M. et al. Reductions in HIV Risk Among Runaway Youth. Prev Sci 4, 173–187 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024697706033

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