Does Early Intervention Prevent Health-Risking Sexual Behaviors Related to HIV/AIDS?

Abstract

Adolescence and young adulthood are developmental stages full of social and economic opportunities and challenges, as young people learn about themselves and experiment with adult behaviors and roles. Unfortunately for many in these age groups, involvement with drugs and associated health-risking sexual behaviors (HRSB) becomes part of these important life transitions, interrupting the course of healthy development. For decades, families, schools, and communities have struggled to find the best ways to raise adolescents and support young adults toward happy, healthy, and productive lives. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has also attended to this important public health issue through funding research dedicated to understanding the role of malleable risk and protective factors for drug use, abuse, and co-occurring mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) disorders and using that knowledge for research devoted to the testing of associated prevention intervention strategies. The results of these latter efforts have demonstrated that theory- and etiologically based interventions delivered in childhood can delay or prevent the onset of MEB disorders, including drug abuse and associated HRSB, among adolescents and young adults (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine 2009). NIH funding has benefited the field of prevention science leading to tremendous gains in biopsychosocial behavioral research over the past 30 years. This Supplemental Issue of Prevention Science presents research supported through the Prevention Research Branch (PRB) at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) from its portfolio of theory-based, developmentally grounded prevention interventions. This portfolio covers the lifespan from the prenatal period through adulthood with interventions for universal, selective, and indicated levels of risk. The testing and replication of early childhood mental health and drug abuse prevention interventions have led to a growing body of long-term follow-up studies that examines differences in life-course outcomes of intervention and control group participants over time, some into late adolescence and adulthood. Evidence from this body of work indicates that (1) it is possible to intervene early in development on proximal risk and protective factors to have an impact on a broad array of distal outcomes; (2) interventions can have effects, some of which are unanticipated positive effects on outcomes not specifically targeted by the intervention; and (3) those at greatest risk can benefit the most from prevention interventions.