Empowered Sisters Project Making Choices Reducing Risks

The purpose of this study is to combine a culturally tailored and integrated Risk Reduction Intervention in the US Virgin Islands (USVI) in a clinical trial randomly assigning abused women to a 1) Healthy Relationships experimental group of three sessions of risk reduction interventions or 2) a Healthy Living comparison control group of three session of health promotion activities to determine if the combined, intervention is safe and effective in a test the following hypotheses: 1. Women in the integrated risk reduction intervention will score significantly lower on outcome measures of intimate partner abuse (IPA) and STD/HIV risk behaviors end of Session III and at 3 and 6 months than women in the control group 2. Women in the integrated risk reduction Intervention will score significantly higher on IPA safety behaviors and STI/HIV prevention behaviors at end of Session III and at 3 and 6 months than women in the control group. Several exploratory and major controlled studies on the mainland US have shown intimate partner violence (IPV) and intimate partner abuse (IPA) to be risk factors for a variety of physical, reproductive and mental health problems, including sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS, many of which are areas of known health disparity for African American and Latina women. A recently completed study of African Caribbean and African American women in the US Virgin Islands revealed that nearly one third of women reported lifetime partner abuse and increased risk for sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS. Abused women in the USVI had significantly more risk factors for HIV/AIDS than did women who were not abused. The proposed intervention combines an empowerment model designed to help abused women make choices that protect the physical and emotional health of the woman and her family with a sexual safety model designed to help her make choices to reduce her risk of acquiring an STI or contracting HIV/AIDS. The integrated model