HIV/AIDS education program targets youths
By Emily Leung
Oct. 20, 2002 9:00 p.m.
There are more effective ways to counter the spread of HIV/AIDS
beyond simply preaching abstinence and safe sex, according to UCLA
Regents lecturer Dr. Loretta Sweet Jemmott.
Jemmott, director of the Center for Urban Health Research and
professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, came
to UCLA last Thursday to speak about alternative research methods
to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS.
Of the 50 people who attended the free event held in the Factor
Building, the majority were professionals and graduate
students.
While Jemmott acknowledges that it may be easy to lecture
adolescents and young adults about the risks and possible
prevention of the disease, it is a lot harder to make them practice
what is preached.
“There are a lot of things that get in the way of a person
wanting to change their behavior,” Jemmott said. “A
person can have all the confidence and knowledge in the world, but
there are a lot of barriers between this and putting on that
condom.”
Jemmott focuses on the social psychological factors of HIV
risk-associated behavior. Her team of researchers have raised over
$74 million in federal research grants, and led a series of
intervention programs that have developed culture-sensitive and age
appropriate strategies.
One of these is the program “Be Proud, Be Responsible:
Strategies to Empower Youth to Reduce Their Risk for AIDS,”
selected by the Division of Adolescent and School Health of the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention as its national
model.
The five-hour program is aimed at 13- to 18-year-olds and
includes short exercises involving educational videos and films
designed to trigger discussion, role-playing, condom demonstrations
and other activities. It is currently being used in more than 26
states around the country in schools, community-based organizations
and clinical settings.
The program’s effectiveness stems from a “personal
and genuine effort to get to know the kids, not as subject #202,
but as a people”, Jemmott said.
You’ve got to “walk the walk, talk the talk”
in order to build a trusting and lasting relationship.
What Jemmott found was that, although parents, church and peers
play an important role in influencing sexual beliefs, “all
this goes out the window when you’re kissing your
partner,” according to Jemmott.
This is vital to the structuring of programs, which were
previously focusing solely on the individual, or individual and
peer interaction.
“You’ve got to take in the big picture,” said
Dr. Michelle Schneider, a psychologist specializing in Emotional
Growth and Development at Stanford.
“Why is it so hard to do what you can say? What are those
factors that turn that voice at the back of your head off?”
asked Schneider.
These barriers include negative beliefs about safer-sex
practices, sporadic sexual behavior, and most importantly, lack of
communication.
“No one wants to talk to their parents about sex,”
said Amy Lee, a second-year undeclared student. “It’s
embarrassing, you wouldn’t know how to bring it up, and if
it’s pain that can be avoided why do it?”
Apparently, parents aren’t the only ones adolescents
don’t feel comfortable talking to.
According to the American Association for World Health, 50
percent of adolescents have never talked to a partner about condoms
or other methods of birth control. More than half have never talked
to a partner about HIV/AIDS or other sexually transmitted
diseases.
Embarrassment, shame and ignorance are key factors in
communication barriers that can be overcome with time and patience,
Schneider said.
“So what if you have to use a condom, or not have
sex,” Jemmott challenges. “You’re a future
leader. What do you want to do (in the future)? And how are you
going to do that if you’re out here doing these things that
get in the way?”
