Youth LIGHT
(Living in good health together)
Acceptability of a Computer
Intervention for Probation Youth

Center for Community Health has partnered with the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Juvenile Court, and Community Schools to implement a two-part research project. The study is funded for three years by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Under the leadership of the NIMH Multisite HIV Prevention Trial Group, Project LIGHT was originally conducted as a multisite national prevention research trial in seven cities with at-risk adults. The results of this study offered useful insight on designing effective prevention programs.

There is growing evidence suggesting that computer-assisted methods of learning are effective in engaging participants. This approach coupled with an effective HIV prevention intervention for youth is the foundation for the current project with youth in continuation schools.

Under the leadership of , the current pilot study will explore if students attending continuation school are receptive to using a self-administered computer program to access HIV prevention information.

The project will modify Project LIGHT to be reflective of the language and experiences relevant to students at continuation schools and produce the intervention on CD-ROM. The computer-assisted intervention will be implemented over two phases at four schools. Phase I will use qualitative research methods to explore the meaning of sex and perspectives about sexual risk behaviors held by the students targeted in the project. The findings will be incorporated into the intervention that will be implemented as Phase II of the study. The study will document changes in the students' risk behaviors by conducting a baseline risk assessment and a three-month follow-up assessment.