Community PROMISE

The Research

The Science Behind the Package
  Community PROMISE is a community-level intervention to promote progress toward consistent HIV prevention through community mobilization and distribution of small-media materials and risk reduction supplies, such as condoms and bleach. The program is derived from the AIDS Community Demonstration Projects. The program is based on several behavioral theories, including the transtheoretical model of behavior change, which states that people move through a series of stages in the process of changing their behavior; the Theory of Reasoned Action, which explains how behaviors are guided by attitudes, beliefs, experiences, and expectations of other persons’ reactions; and Social Cognitive Theory, which states that persons learn by observing other people successfully practice a new behavior.

Target Population
Injection drug users, their female sex partners, sex workers, non-gay identified men who have sex with men, high-risk youth, and residents in areas with high rates of sexually transmitted disease.

Intervention
Persons from the targeted at-risk communities are recruited and trained to be community advocates and to distribute role model stories and risk reduction supplies on the streets of their communities. Role model stories are personal accounts from individuals in the target population explaining how and why they took steps to practice HIV risk-reduction behaviors and the positive effects the choice has had on their lives. The messages in the role model stories are reinforced by interpersonal communication with the community advocates. Each week, community advocates distribute stories and supplies to 10 to 20 of their peers.

Research Results
Communities where Community PROMISE was conducted showed:

• Significant movement by community members toward consistent condom use with their main and non-main partners.
• Significantly increased condom carrying among members of the communities.

For Details on the Research Design
The CDC AIDS Community Demonstration Projects Research Group. (1999). Community-level HIV intervention in 5 cities: Final outcome data from the CDC AIDS Community Demonstration Projects. American Journal of Public Health 89, 336-345.

The Intervention

A Package Developed from Science Replicating Effective Programs (REP) is a CDC-initiated project that supports the translation of evidence-based HIV/AIDS prevention interventions into everyday practice, by working with the original researchers in developing a user-friendly package of materials designed for prevention providers. Community PROMISE is one of the REP interventions and is the product of extensive collaboration among researchers who originally developed and evaluated the intervention and the community based agencies and health department that implemented the intervention. The package has been field tested in a large AIDS services organization and a health department by non-research staff.

Core Elements
Core elements are intervention components that must be maintained without alteration to ensure program effectiveness.

The core elements of Community PROMISE include:

1. Assessing what an agency needs to know about the community before implementing Community PROMISE.
2. Recruiting and training persons from the targeted at-risk communities to become community advocates to their peers.
3. Creating role model stories based on personal accounts from individuals in the target population who already have made some risk-reduction behavior change.
4. Distributing role model stories and risk reduction supplies by community advocates.

Package Contents

• Five intervention manuals that guide organizations through planning, implementation, maintenance, and evaluation of the intervention.
• Two videos: Intervention overview and How to conduct a role model story interview.
• Samples of intervention and training materials, role model stories, condoms, and bleach kits.

Timeline for Availability
The package is available from CDC along with training on program implementation and technical assistance.

For More Information on the Community PROMISE Package
To find out more about future trainings, please visit http://effectiveinterventions.org.

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