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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Scott Rhodes, PhD, MPH, CHES¹, Kenneth Hergenrather, PhD, MSEd, MRC², Jaime Montaño³, Fred Bloom, PhD⁴, and Jami Leichliter, PhD⁴. (1) Social Sciences and Health Policy, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Public Health Sciences, Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1063, 336-713-5080, srhodes@wfubmc.edu, (2) Department of Counseling/Human and Organizational Studies, The George Washington University, 2134 G Street, NW, #318, Washington, DC 20052, (3) Chatham Social Health Council, PO Box 297, Pittsboro, NC 27312, (4) Division of STD Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NCHSTP/DSTDP/BIRB MS: E-44, 1600 Clifton Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA 30333

Issues: Although Latino communities living in the United States have been disproportionately affected by HIV and STDs, the development, implementation, and evaluation of prevention interventions designed to reduce infection among Latinos lags behind prevention efforts targeting other communities.

Description: HoMBReS: Hombres Manteniendo Bienestar y Relaciones Saludables (Men: Men Maintaining Wellness and Healthy Relationships) is an intervention designed to reduce HIV and STD infection among recently-arrived, non-English-speaking Latino men who are members of a Latino soccer league in central North Carolina, a region of the US with both the fastest growing Latino population and disproportionate HIV and STD infection rates.

Using a community-based participatory (CBPR), development of HoMBReS included: partnership expansion; agreement on intervention priorities based on formative data; introduction of theory; development of a logic model; the creation of intervention activities; and intervention pretesting and refinement. This process yielded an intervention based on social cognitive and empowerment theories that utilized lay health advisors working within the existing social networks of the soccer league.

Lessons Learned: CBPR was a successful approach to combine research and community perspectives and knowledge into a meaningful intervention. CBPR incorporated the scientific foundations of behavioral change in an iterative process of co-learning among the partners, while ensuring that HoMBReS was rooted in the lived experiences of Latino men, for whom it was designed.

Recommendations: CBPR, which has proven to be an effective means of intervention development, is feasible within this population, which is often considered to be “harder-to-reach,” and should be considered when planning future interventions.

Learning Objectives: