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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Karen M. Anderson, PhD1, Melissa Davis2, Barbara Wingrove, MPH3, M. Nabil El-Khorazaty, PhD2, Brinda Bhaskar, MS2, Leslie Walker, MD4, Helen P. Koo, PhD5, and Renee Jenkins, MD6. (1) College of Medicine, Howard University, 2018 Georgia Ave. NW, 2nd Floor, Washington, DC 20001, 202-865-3881, kmanderson@howard.edu, (2) RTI International, 6110 Executive Blvd., Suite 420, Rockville, MD 20852, (3) NIH/NICHD, 6001 Executive Blvd., Suite 7B07H, Rockville, MD 20852, (4) Dept. of Pediatrics, Georgetown University, 2 Pasquillera Health Center, 3800 Reservoir Rd., Washington, DC 20007, (5) Health, Social and Economics Research, RTI International, 3040 Cornwallis Rd., Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, (6) Department of Pediatrics, Howard University Hospital, 2041 Georgia Avenue, NW 6th Floor, Room 6-B-04, Washington, D.C., DC 20060
Adolescents in the United States are initiating sexual intercourse at alarmingly young ages. Recent research, then, emphasizes the importance of beginning prevention efforts aimed at younger children, more specifically while they are elementary school students. Although there is compelling evidence for aiming interventions to delay the initiation of sexual intercourse at pre-adolescents, most interventions conducted and evaluated to date have focused on middle or high school students. This paper describes the initial results and baseline data from a school-based adolescent pregnancy prevention program that was conducted with 5th grade students and their parents in 16 Washington, DC elementary schools. Schools were randomly assigned to intervention or control conditions. The intervention consisted primarily of 11 sessions for the children and 7 sessions for the parents; both interventions were designed to address key risk factors associated with early sexual debut. To evaluate the interventions, survey data were collected from students and parents both before and after the intervention at all 16 schools. This paper will describe (1) the rates of parents giving consent, and of children's and parent's participation in the surveys and interventions; and (2) individual and familial factors associated with adolescent changes and sexual initiation.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Prevention, Adolescent Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.