The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #46235

Sanjana Ajey Bhardwaj, DR¹, Snigdha Mukherjee², thelma sequeira, dr³, prakash m gurnani, dr⁴, Katharine E Stewart, PhD⁵, Sten Vermund, MDPhD⁶, Leslie F. Clark, PhD², sibylle Kristensen, ms⁷, and katerina kacirkova, ms⁸. (1) HEALTH BEHAVIOR; SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, BIRMINGHAM, 1714,13th court south, birmingham, AL 35205, 205 933 6486, drsanjana_b@yahoo.com, (2) Department of Health Behavior, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1665 University Blvd. Ryals 227, Birmingham, AL 35205, (3) medical officer, schools, brihanmumbai municipal corporation, mumbai, india, g/north municipal ward office, dadar west, mumbai, 400028, India, (4) program officer, health and nutrition, unicef, mumbai, india, andheri, mumbai, India, (5) Behavioral Medicine Unit, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1717 11th Ave. South, Suite 401, Birmingham, AL 35294, (6) geographic medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, bevill buiding, 19th street, birmingham, AL 35205, (7) co director, fogarty international, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, BIRMINGHAM, bevill buiding, 19th street, birmingham, AL 35205, (8) coordinator, fogarty international, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, BIRMINGHAM, room 424, ryals building,university boulevard, birmingham, AL 35205

The AIDS Prevention Education Program, APEP, is being implemented successfully in schools in mumbai since 1993. teachers are trained in 3 day workshops and conduct sessions for ninth graders. Sessions cover family life education, STD's, HIV / AIDS, life skills etc.The program reaches out to 650 day schools and 25 night schools presently. There are approximately 150 night schools in mumbai. The children studying in these schools belong to a higher age group 15 to 21 years. Many of them work for a living during the day amd study at night. They come from neighbouring small towns for better prospects in the city. The above all puts them at a greater risk for indulging in high risk behaviors. The project aims to select and train peer educators from night schools and have them deliver part of the present APEP curriculum with teachers. Effectiveness of the intervention will be compared in the peer and teacher schools with the teacher schools alone. Based on literature review, it has been seen that peer led interventions address the needs of adolescents more effectively than teacher led ones. It is hypothesised that peer intervention with these high risk night school students will be more effective in building rapport, dealing with sensitive topics like sexuality, HIV/ AIDS than a teacher led one alone.

Learning Objectives:

• At present the AIDS Prevention Education Program is being delivered to ninth graders in schools through trained teachers. This project aims to select and train peer educators from night schools in Mumbai, India.
• These trained peer educators will then conduct sessions with teachers for the high risk night school students.
• Process and impact evaluation to be done to assess the effectiveness of an intervention with teachers alone versus a teacher and peer model.

Keywords: Peer Education, Sexual Risk Behavior

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.