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Michaela G. Lindahl, MPH, Daniel Lopez-Cevallos, MPH, Elvia Graves, Antonio Torres, BA, Lina Loaiza, BS, and Elizabeth Rink, LCSW, CHES. Public Health Division, Benton County Health Department, 530 NW 27th Street, Corvallis, OR 97330, 541-766-6124, Michaela.G.Lindahl@co.benton.or.us

The HIV Integration Project at the Benton County Health Department utilizes bilingual/bicultural Promotores de Salud to conduct outreach, referral services and HIV testing, counseling, and prevention in the local Latino community. This paper focuses on the process of selecting and developing culturally sound measures for our target population. The goal of instrument development was to generate community appropriate measures of abstinence, monogamy, condom use, and HIV/AIDS prevention knowledge. The HIV Integration Project intervention consists of three steps: 1) HIV testing and counseling, 2) Pre/Post assessment of HIV knowledge, attitudes and beliefs regarding abstinence, monogamy, condom use, and sexual history, and 3) Education sessions using a Popular Education Model. Instruments were adapted from published materials regarding measures on abstinence, monogamy, condom beliefs, sexual health, and HIV/AIDS prevention, with the focus of weighting measures equally. Instruments were originally developed in English, translated into Spanish, and back translated into English to check for consistency. Seventy-eight percent of the local Latino community is of Mexican origin, and the Promotores de Salud were key in revising the initial instruments for appropriate language and education levels. After preliminary testing of the instruments, Cronbach's alpha reliability scores were strong across measures. Results from the first year's evaluation demonstrate significant change in knowledge surrounding HIV/AIDS. While clients are not yet changing already held beliefs regarding abstinence, monogamy and condom use, they are learning how to better protect themselves from HIV/AIDS.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize barriers to instrument development for a rural Hispanic/Latino community.
• Describe culturally sound measures of abstinence, monogamy, condom use, sexual health and HIV/AIDS prevention for a rural Latino community.
• Identify two ways to test for strength of measures within the instrument.

Keywords: Latinos, Evaluation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered