Background: The "Healthy Men, Health Communities" program aims to improve preventive behaviors among African American men to reduce HPV-related cancer disparities. Purpose: We describe the development of an educational intervention using cultural-targeting strategies (i.e., linguistics, peripherals, evidence, socio-culture, and…

Sex education both in and beyond the classroom has been shown to have the potential to ameliorate negative sexual health outcomes for adolescents. School-based sex education and sexual health services targeting young people should be informed, in part, by teenagers themselves. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 41 young people aged…

Objective: Each year, humanitarian groups provide health education programmes and interventions to underserved communities in Nicaragua. The purpose of this study was to identify the health education needs of a small community in rural Nicaragua to inform health education programming. Design: Mixed methods approach that used a quantitative survey…

This paper describes the development of a Dutch online programme called "Long Live Love+" focusing on positive, coercion-free relationships, contraception use, and the prevention of STIs, using the Intervention Mapping (IM) approach. All six steps of the approach were followed. Step 1 confirmed the need for a sexual health programme…

Objective: The STI/HIV prevention programme in Amsterdam aims to improve the sexual health of Amsterdam residents of African, Antillean, Aruban and Surinamese origins. The programme strategy is to achieve and enhance the participation of migrant community-based organisations (CBOs) in sexual health promotion through a grant scheme and by providing…

Objective: This study aimed to understand the gaps in college students' knowledge regarding sexual health information. Participants: A sample of 242 participants enrolled in an introductory college course participated in this study in the Fall 2009 semester. Methods: Students participated in 1 of 2 brief interventions and wrote a response paper…

Problem: College life offers several challenges for students, particularly freshmen who often find themselves in an unsupervised environment with multiple opportunities to engage in a variety of risk behaviors. The purpose of this study was to examine the sexual behaviors of college freshmen enrolled at a U.S. Hispanic Serving Institution. Method:…

Objectives: The authors aimed to determine the most effective brief sexual health intervention for college students, while also evaluating students' preferences for learning about sexual health, in order to develop a university program. Methods: A total of 302 students enrolled in an introductory college course participated and were randomly…

Background: This paper discusses the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention's effort to develop a web-based service called Project CREATE that responds to a need for targeted health promotion materials expressed by directors of HIV/STD prevention services in predominately rural states. Purpose: Project CREATE allows users to select customized…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the socio-cultural variables that may influence teachers' adoption of classroom-based HIV/AIDS education within the school setting and among school types in Zambia's Lusaka Province. Method: Mixed methods were used to collect original data. Using semi-structured interviews (n=11) and a survey…

It is very important that sex and relationships education (SRE) programme developers attempt to elicit, understand and incorporate young people's views in the SRE development and implementation processes. This paper reports the findings of a study that sought to identify young people's self-identified learning needs and priorities regarding sexual…

Background: Despite effective solutions to reduce teen birth rates, Texas teen birth rates are among the highest in the nation. School districts can impact youth sexual behavior through implementation of evidence-based programs (EBPs); however, teen pregnancy prevention is a complex and controversial issue for school districts. Subsequently, very…

Investigated whether HIV-prevention program planners sought out science in designing interventions and, if not, where they gathered prevention information. Surveys of program mangers nationwide indicated that three important sources of information were peers and colleagues, departments of public health, and the Centers for Disease Control and…

Needs assessments require staff with the necessary expertise to design the study, collect the data, analyze the data, and present results. They require money, time, and persistence, because the people one wishes to assess often are difficult to access. This article argues for the centrality of a well-done needs assessment when developing services…

A major shortcoming to the understanding and development of HIV/AIDS programs to mitigate social stigma is the paucity of research pertaining to how young people in sub-Saharan African countries perceive those infected with HIV, and how these stigmatizing attitudes are formed, projected and reinforced. The purpose of this study was to examine…