Family-Based HIV Prevention for Latinos

The proposed project will develop and test an HIV prevention intervention for Latino families. This study will: 1. Conduct a pilot "run-through" of an adapted family-based intervention with three cohorts (about 24 families) to determine the feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness for the target population. 2. Revise the family-based HIV prevention intervention based on the results of the pilot "run-through" and structured exit interviews. 3. Recruit and randomize 100 families into the Latino family-based HIV prevention intervention or a general health promotion condition. 4. Estimate the effect size of the Latino family-based HIV prevention intervention from assessment of changes in HIV-related sexual behavior and attitudes and parental monitoring/supervision over 6 months. Based on a thorough review of the literature, the following is anticipated: 1. The revised intervention will be feasible, acceptable, and appropriate for Latino families and will be enthusiastically received. 2. The family-based HIV prevention intervention will result in safer adolescent sexual behavior, greater change with regard to primary outcome measures of behavior (recent sexual activity, the number of unprotected sex acts, proportion of condom use, and intentions to use condoms), safer HIV-related attitudes, improved parent-child communication skills, and greater parental monitoring than the Latino families in the general health promotion condition.