Although the AIDS epidemic has slowed among Caucasians, it continues to climb among African-Americans (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention [CDC], 2000). Young African- American (AA) women are especially vulnerable. The CDC estimates that women will make up 30% of all new cases of HIV; 64% of these women will be African-American and 75% will have contracted the virus through heterosexual transmission (CDC, 2000). The need for this study grew from the lack of parental participation in an urban school-based fifth-grade abstinence program. The investigator will present the results of three focus groups recruited from a self-help group of parents living in public housing projects. The groups consist of mothers of children ages 4-8, ages 9-13, and 14-18. The leaders of the self-help group and senior nursing students are cooperating in the development and conduct of the focus groups. The focus group meetings are being tape-recorded. The nursing students and the investigator will transcribe the tapes and look for themes in the recordings. The needs of the three groups will be compared for shifts in parent-child communication needs related to age of the children. The findings will be used to develop a model for parental sexual education. This research is significant to the public and to the profession because it addresses the Healthy People 2010 Objectives and the Centers for Disease Control Proposed Strategic Plan (September 2000) to decrease the incidence of HIV in African-Americans, especially young women.
Learning Objectives: Participants will be able to: 1) identify the elements of a successful community-university partnership to assess residents health promotion needs; 2) describe the process of conducting qualitative research with focus groups; and 3) describe the parental sexuality education needs of one group of low-income African-American mothers.
Keywords: Sexuality, Research
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
Disclosure not received
Relationship: Not Received.