APP is presently working with the Dr. Rafael Diaz of the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies on an evaluation of our classroom program. For more information on this Evaluation Project see the Complete Research Protocol Also see the 1999 evaluation results for this project . In order to further explain our definition of empowerment, we must review the theories underlying HIV prevention work over the last 15 years to point out how these theories fall short. We are drawing from our observations of and experiences with HIV prevention interventions, curricula, films, social marketing campaigns, and other media used in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties and around the country. Simultaneously, we would like to model for you the process of evaluating your own interventions to be able to say explicitly what empowerment means to you.
People participate in risky sexual behaviors because they are ignorant of facts and information.
The simple transfer of facts and information may work with apple juice and Ecoli or tampons and Toxic Shock Syndrome, but information, as necessary as it is, is not nearly sufficient to introduce, change or sustain behavior. Empowering someone to walk in an AIDS Walk does not mean that they are empowered to have protected sex. Ultimately, red ribbons do not prevent the spread of sexually transmitted disease. It's not gonna happen to me. There are people, both youth and adults, who are ignorant or in denial about their risk for contracting HIV, but this theory does not explain the teenage girl who continues to have unprotected sex with her boyfriend weeks after an abortion or the gay man who has friends all around him who are HIV positive but has unprotected sex anyway.