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336018
AMP!: A Pilot Evaluation of a Theater-based HIV Prevention Intervention for High School Students


Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Tamara Taggart, MPH, PhD, Department of Health Behavior, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC
Arianna Taboada, MSW, MSPH, Art and Global Health Center, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Judith Stein, PhD, Art & Global Health Center, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Norweeta Milburn, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA Nathanson Family Resilience Center, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
David Gere, PhD, Art & Global Health Center, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Alexandra Lightfoot, EdD, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Health Behavior, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Background: AMP! (Arts-based, Multiple intervention, Peer-education) is a theater-based HIV intervention for high school adolescents. AMP! was developed using the Theory of Reasoned Action and Theatre of the Oppressed framework, to augment high school sexual health curricula. Participants attend three theater-based performances and workshops developed and delivered by trained “near peer” college undergraduates. AMP!includes discussion and interactive activities on HIV prevention strategies, healthy relationships, high-risk behaviors associated with HIV transmission, and stigma reduction towards people living with HIV/AIDS.

Methods: We used a pretest-posttest, control group study design for a pilot study of AMP! with ninth grade students in Los Angeles, CA (N = 159) and Chapel Hill, NC (N = 317). The control group received standard health education which includes a unit on sexual health. Structural equation modeling was used to determine intervention effects. 

Results: The post-test sample was 46% male, 90% self-identified as heterosexual, 32% reported receiving free or reduced lunch, and 19% had some sexual experience. AMP! participants were significantly more likely to report an increase in HIV Awareness, (.13, p < .05), more positive HIV Attitudes (.10, p < .05), greater HIV Knowledge (.12, p < .05), and less Hard Drug Use (-.10, p < .05) than the control group. Latent means analyses revealed post-test scores were significantly higher than pretest scores on the HIV variables and participation in AMP!.

Conclusion: AMP! is a promising school-based HIV intervention for adolescents, and shows support for the use of theater-based approaches to deliver HIV prevention in diverse school settings.

Learning Areas:

Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Describe the effects of AMP!, an HIV prevention intervention, on sexual norms, beliefs, and practices of ninth grade students in two diverse geographic settings. Discuss challenges to implementing and evaluating a theater-based HIV prevention intervention in diverse settings.

Keyword(s): Adolescents, HIV/AIDS

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health whose research has focused on adolescent health behaviors for the past 10 years. I also served as a graduate research assistant on the intervention study that the data were drawn from for this abstract.
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.

Back to: 4325.0: Innovations in HIV Screening, Prevention, and Treatment