DC group reaching teens on HIV prevention
Near peers teach about HIV, safe sex
Metro TeenAIDS of Washington, DC, works to reduce HIV risk among youth in a city that is among the hardest hit areas of the country in terms of the HIV epidemic.
Washington, DC, has a 3% to 5% HIV infection rate, making it a city with a generalized HIV epidemic that rivals some sub-Saharan African regions, says Adam Tenner, executive director of Metro TeenAIDS.
HIV prevention money and strategies can have a bigger impact when they're used to target small regions with a concentrated HIV epidemic, he notes.
Metro TeenAIDS has had some success with HIV education interventions that target one particular population impacted by the DC epidemic.
"We've seen big jumps in HIV knowledge among young people," Tenner says. "We've seen increases in young people saying they feel more confident about not having sex or using condoms."
The organization's strongest program has young educators visiting DC schools to teach middle school and high school students about HIV and AIDS.
"Over the past year, we were in 75% of middle schools and 50% of high schools, providing structured nine-week HIV education and skills building," Tenner says. "We use near peers and partner with the local AmeriCorps program."
The young adults receive 60 hours of training about classroom management and HIV/AIDS before they enter the schools to teach teenagers and pre-teens about how to prevent HIV infection, he explains.
Some of the schools incorporate the education in their regular curriculum, and some provide space for training sessions held after school.
The educational sessions supplement health education programming with strong, evidence-based HIV and reproductive health programming, Tenner says.
"They focus on information, skills, and behavior change readiness to make sure young people feel ready for saying 'No' to sex and negotiating condom use and delaying risk taking in general," he adds. "It's a very interactive curriculum that weaves together information skills and includes drug and alcohol use and other risk-taking behaviors."
Risk factors in teens
Some of the risk factors for HIV infection include a very early debut of sexual activity, low condom use, and having concurrent partners, Tenner says.
The prevention education has been well received by teens, he notes.
"What young people often report is they thought they knew a lot about HIV, but were, in fact, under-informed," he says.
Metro TeenAIDS also runs a successful social marketing campaign that encourages young people to get tested for HIV, Tenner says.
"We see a really good response rate," he adds. "The campaign has a texting component where teens can text to find information that's available on adolescent-friendly places about HIV testing."
A next step might involve partnering with the local health department and other HIV organizations to expand the social marketing campaign for addressing some of the core issues fueling the epidemic, including low rates of condom use, concurrent partners, and early sexual debut, Tenner says.
"We're at the beginning of the process," he adds. "We'll try to get together in October a core group of marketing people and public health people to begin to figure out how to do this differently."
The key is to find messages that will have an impact on young people before they become sexually active.
"We're also working on a female condom effort here in DC," Tenner says. "We've worked with the health department and a local business council to get more female condoms out in the community and to make them more commercially available."
Metro TeenAIDS of Washington, DC, works to reduce HIV risk among youth in a city that is among the hardest hit areas of the country in terms of the HIV epidemic.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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