204363 Pointing African Americans Towards Health (PAATH) - HIV/SAP Prevention for High Risk African American Youth

Monday, November 9, 2009: 1:30 PM

Kelvin Walston, MA AS , Wholistic Stress Control Institute, Atlanta, GA
  
Background: 99% of persons living with AIDS in Atlanta, were youth infected during adolescents or young adults. Blacks aged 13 to 19 represent 15 percent of the U.S. teenage population, but accounted for 66 percent of new AIDS cases in 2003. Young people engaging in risk-taking behaviors are in jeopardy of contracting HIV. Method: Conducted a 20 hour HIVP/SAP intervention from a unique cultural and wholistic health perspective. Using a pre and post test design. Results: Upon post testing, 613 participants indicated they were now less likely to have sex with multiple partners and when they have sex they would have safer sex. Participants were asked how likely they were to have sex in next three months, have more than one sexual partner, and to practice safe sex. Both the treatment and control groups said that they were “a little likely” to have sex in the next three months at pretest (treatment m = 3.07, control m = 2.69) and posttest (treatment m = 3.06, control m = 2.95). For the likelihood having more than one sexual partner (pretest treatment m = 3.59, control m = 3.25; posttest treatment m = 3.51, control m = 3.33) and practicing safe sex (pretest treatment m = 1.62, control m = 1.45; posttest treatment m = 1.80, control m = 1.41). Conclusion: Effective HIV programs must use popular culture, African values and wholistic practices, to help youth gain critical skills.

Learning Objectives:
OBJECTIVE 1: Identify cultural factors and environmental messages influencing HIV Risk behavior in the African American male and female youth. OBJECTIVE 2: Demonstrate how to incorporate alternatives to substance abuse of alcohol, and drug addiction which leads to increased HIV risk OBJECTIVE 3: Design and effectively use culturally competent teaching materials while incorporating current events issues into the lessons.

Keywords: Adolescent Health, HIV Interventions

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Kelvin Walston holds a Bachelor’s of Art Degree in History from Elizabeth City State University. Mr. Walston will receive his Master of Arts Degree in African Studies from Clark Atlanta University May 08. He has worked in the Public Health field for the past six years. Mr. Walston worked five years with Morehouse School of Medicine, Prevention Research Center on the Violence Prevention Coalition. There he instituted a violence prevention module for two Atlanta Public Schools. He developed three newsletters for the Violence Prevention Coalition. Mr. Walston has three publications, Morehouse School of Medicine/ Prevention Research Center vol. 2. Issue 3, The 130th Annual meeting of APHA conference: Gender-specific prevention programming for female adolescents, he was co-author on the article. He appeared on a live satellite broadcast for George Washington University produced by Hamilton Fish Institute: School safety. Currently, Mr. Walston is a Case Manager and Health Educator for Wholistic Stress Control Institute’s PAATH PROJECT. He instructs classes on H.I.V. education, Substance Abuse Prevention, and African American history.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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