Funding Source and Project Period: CDC, 0/30/07-8/31/08

Collaborating Institutions and Key Personnel:

HIV Center:
Principal Investigator:  Susie Hoffman, Dr.P.H.

Medical and Health Research Association of New York City, Inc. (MHRA):

Project Overview:

This project  packages Project FIO (The Future is Ours), a proven HIV behavioral intervention for use with women at highest risk of acquiring HIV (Project FIO) into a Replicating Effective Programs (REP) for use by HIV prevention service providers. Developed at the HIV Center, Project FIO is an eight-session group-based intervention, with both short- and long-term efficacy, that targets young, heterosexually active women engaging in high-risk sexual behaviors in urban communities where rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are high, and provides women with a set of skills to enhance their protective capacities.  Project FIO has both short- and long-term efficacy in reducing sexual risk behaviors in young, heterosexually active, high-risk  women in urban communities.  FIO was initially developed and tested with women recruited from an urban family planning setting, but has the potential to be implemented by a wide range of agencies conducting HIV prevention work including clinics and community based organizations (CBOs) such as AIDS service organizations, community centers, multi-service centers, and publicly-funded daycare centers that serve young, urban, low-income, heterosexually active women whose HIV/STD risk profile is similar.

The replication project will enhance the capacity of local HIV prevention organizations to implement and sustain effective and feasible behavioral interventions targeted to high-risk women in urban communities. With advice from a community advisory board, the HIV Center and MHRA are developing a user-friendly intervention package for Project FIO, including an intervention manual, training curriculum, and technical assistance materials.  Working with selected community clinics, the team is implementing the intervention, training the staff, and using process measures to evaluate all the elements of the package.  Based on the experiences of the case study clinics, the team will revise the FIO intervention package so it that it can be readily implemented by other organizations working with young, heterosexually active, high-risk women.