The Rural African American's Health Project
Condition: SAAF-T; FUEL for Families
Study type: Interventional
Phase: Phase 2

Summary: 
      This is an attention controlled randomized clinical trial testing the efficacy of the Strong
      African American Families-Teen program. The two arm trial tests SAAF-T, a family centered
      brief intervention against a similarly designed program that targets nutrition and exercise.
      The outcomes examined include substance use and risky sexual behavior.
    

Detailed description: 
      In the past, African American adolescents in rural areas have avoided the high-risk behaviors
      prevalent among youth in urban areas. Recent epidemiologic data, however, indicate that rural
      African American youth use substances and engage in high-risk sexual behavior at rates equal
      to or exceeding those in densely populated inner cities (Kogan, Berkel, Chen, Brody, & Murry,
      in press; Milhausen et al., 2003). These risk behaviors predict HIV infection, adolescent
      parenthood, school dropout, involvement with the criminal justice system, and continued
      substance use during early adulthood (Friedman et al., 1996; Miller, Boyer, & Cotton, 2004;
      St. Lawrence & Scott, 1996; Tucker, Orlando, & Ellickson, 2003). No developmentally
      appropriate, culturally sensitive prevention programs have been developed to deter substance
      use and high-risk sexual behavior among the several million African American adolescents who
      live in the rural South (Murry & Brody, 2004). To address this public health need, Drs. Brody
      and Murry from the University of Georgia and Drs. DiClemente and Wingood from Emory
      University designed a multicomponent, family-centered prevention program, the Strong African
      American Families-Teen program (SAAF-T). We conducted a randomized prevention trial to test
      the program's efficacy. The sample included 502 rural African American families with a
      10th-grade student, half of whom will be assigned randomly to a prevention group and half to
      an attention-control group. Pre-intervention, post-intervention, and long-term follow-up
      assessments of adolescents' substance use and high-risk sexual behavior were gathered from
      the entire sample. Specific aims were to test hypotheses that rural African American
      adolescents randomly assigned to participate in SAAF-T, compared to attention-control
      participants, will demonstrate lower rates of substance use and risky sexual behavior.
    

Intervention name(s): SAAF-T; Fuel for Families
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Parents and youth meet separately during first hour to engage in activities then meet in family groups during the second hours of each session.; Parents and youth meet separately during first hour to engage in activities then meet in family groups during the second hours of each session.
Other intervention name(s): Strong AFrican American Families-Teen Program
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Double (Participant, Care Provider)
Primary purpose: Prevention