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Teen Health Project

An Evidence-Based Practice

Description

The goal of the Teen Health Project (THP) is to provide adolescents living in low-income housing developments with the skills necessary to prevent HIV risk behaviors. First, adolescents attend two 3-hour workshops that focus on teaching sexual negotiation, proper condom use, HIV/STD education, and ways to avoid unwanted sex. Next, adolescents attend two follow-up sessions as well as various community activities and events with peers from their housing developments.

In addition, a Teen Health Project Leadership Council is established in each housing development to encourage continued participation in various program events, and to support the establishment of HIV prevention behaviors as norms. Finally, parents of adolescent participants are offered a workshop that teaches them about HIV/AIDS and way to discuss issues related to abstinence and condom use with their children.

Goal / Mission

The goal of the Teen Health Project is to provide adolescents with the skills necessary to prevent HIV risk behaviors.

Impact

The Teen Health Project shows that community-level interventions that include skills training and engage adolescents in neighborhood-based HIV prevention activities can produce and maintain reductions in sexual risk behavior, including delaying sexual debut and increasing condom use.

Results / Accomplishments

Two months post-intervention, adolescents who participated in the Teen Health Project were significantly more likely to have remained abstinent than adolescents who only received HIV/AIDS education (p=0.04). Also at two months post-intervention, sexually active adolescents who had participated in the intervention were significantly more likely to report condom use at last sex when compared to their counterparts in the control group (p=0.05).

About this Promising Practice

Primary Contact
Kathleen J. Sikkema
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Duke University
9 Flowers Drive, Box 90086
Durham, NC 27708
(919) 684-9073
kathleen.sikkema@duke.edu
Topics
Health / Adolescent Health
Health / Prevention & Safety
Source
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Date of publication
Jun 2005
Date of implementation
1998
Geographic Type
Urban
Location
cities in Wisconsin, Virginia, and Washington
For more details
https://www.socio.com/products/pasha-teen-health-p...
https://youth.gov/evidence-innovation/tpper/progra...
Target Audience
Teens
Additional Audience
low-income

Related Promising Practices

  1. Safer Sex Skills Building (SSSB)
  2. Healthy Love
  3. HIV/STD Risk Reduction Interventions for African American and Latino Adolescent Girls
  4. Real AIDS Prevention Project (RAPP)
  5. Assisting in Rehabilitating Kids (ARK)

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Related Content for: Teen Health Project

An Evidence-Based Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures showing improvement in the outcome(s) of interest after the implementation of the program (i.e. increase in smoking cessation, not just the delivery of a smoking cessation program). The outcome measure(s) is/are compared at relevant time periods before and after the intervention or program implementation. Alternatively, the evaluation study compares the outcome(s) between an intervention group and an appropriate control group.
  3. The study is of peer-review quality and presents numbers in a scientific manner; measurements of precision and reliability are included (e.g. confidence intervals, standard errors), results from statistical tests show a significant difference or change in the outcome measure(s), and relevant point estimates and p-values are presented. Note: if the results from an evaluation of a program are presented in a scientific manner and the outcome measure is improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant, the practice is classified as effective and not evidence-based.
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