Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #118518

Sharon M. Hudson, PhD, Health Research Association, 1111 N. Las Palmas Avenue, Hollywood, CA 90038, 323-957-4147, shudson@hra-paramount.org, Peter R. Kerndt, MD, MPH, STD Program, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, 2615 S. Grand Ave, Room 500, Los Angeles, CA 90007, Mary Latka, PhD, Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies, New York Academy of Medicine, 1216 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10029, Holly Hagan, PhD, HIV/AIDS Epidemiology, Public Health - Seattle & King County, 106 Prefontaine Place South, Seattle, WA 98104, Elizabeth T. Golub, PhD, MPH, Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, 627 N. Washington Street, Baltimore, MD 21205, and Susan L. Bailey, PhD, Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1601 W Taylor St, Chicago, IL 60612.

Background: We hypothesized that by actively engaging participants in community-based peer outreach, including outreach, experimental arm participants would increase their sense of empowerment, thus contributing to decreased risk-taking behavior. This analysis examined whether empowerment was affected by the intervention.

Methods: IDUs aged 15-30 years were recruited for baseline risk assessment and serologic testing. HIV- and HCV-negative individuals were invited to participate in the trial. Follow-up assessments were completed at 3 and 6 months. Empowerment was measured using 25 items from the 28-item scale published by Rogers, et al. (1997). Correlational analyses and t-tests examined the relationship between empowerment and our outcome variables at baseline (n=3285) and 3-month follow-up (n=552).

Results: At baseline, empowerment was significantly correlated with self-esteem (r=0.49) depression (r=-0.29), anxiety (r=-0.23), positive expectations regarding condom use (r=0.23), confidence in ability to use condoms (r = 0.22), and self-efficacy for doing peer education about safer sex (r=0.26) and safer drug injection (r=0.23) (p<0.0001 for all). Empowerment was not associated with any sex or injection risk behaviors at baseline. On preliminary analysis, baseline empowerment was not associated with risk behaviors at follow-up in either arm, nor did empowerment significantly increase from baseline to follow-up in either arm.

Conclusions: Empowerment in this sample was not directly related to risk behavior at baseline or follow-up. Because we theorized that empowerment was linked to behavior change, our finding non-significant differences in risk behavior across trial arms (reported elsewhere) may be due to a failure of the intervention to increase empowerment.

Learning Objectives: