| Abstract: | Seroprevalence studies and documented sex and drug use risk behaviors indicate the importance of primary prevention programs for HIV among adolescents. Females and minority adolescents are at particular risk. Prevention workers must decide which strategies to advocate: abstinence, monogamy, HIV testing, screening partners, or explicit instruction of safer acts. Youths must be helped to personalize knowledge of HIV, acquire coping skills, and gain access to health care resources. Programs based on cognitive-behavioral models have been initially successfully in reducing risk behaviors, however, there is a need for more community-wide and media interventions. Adolescents' developmental features require that special attention be paid to implementation issues, including parent and peer involvement in the design of prevention programs.This work was supported by Grant 1P50 MH 43520 to the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Anke A. Ehrhardt, Director, as well as by a grant from the W. T. Grant Faculty Scholars Award Program. We also wish to acknowledge the contributions of Elizabeth Grace, Clara Haignere, Joyce Hunter, Damien Martin, Alphonso Silverls, and J. St Hill.Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus and Cheryl Kooperman are affiliated with the Division of Psychiatry, Columbia University, the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, New York State Psychiatric Institute, and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. |
