Journal article
Mediating Pathways in Faith-Based Sexual Risk-Reduction for African American Adolescents: Insights from a Church-Based Randomized Controlled Trial
Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities
07 May 2025
PMID: 40332746
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
African American youth face disproportionate risks for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other sexually transmitted infections, highlighting the need for culturally tailored, evidence-based interventions. This research reports a secondary, exploratory analysis examining the mediation effects of theoretical constructs on the efficacy of sexual risk-reduction interventions promoting abstinence for African American adolescents in church-based settings. The participants are African American adolescents aged 11-14 from 14 churches in Philadelphia, PA (N = 613) who participated in a randomized controlled trial of parent-child faith-based and non-faith-based sexual risk-reduction interventions. Data were collected at baseline, immediate post-intervention, and 3-, 6-, 12-, and 18-month post-intervention. We examined whether the interventions' effects on the frequency of sexual intercourse in the past 3 months were mediated through theoretical constructs, including outcome expectancies, subjective norms, self-efficacy, and intention, using a product-of-coefficients approach. We also explored potential moderation effects of sexual experience, church membership, child gender, and parent gender. We found that self-efficacy mediated the effect of the faith-based intervention (α × β × γ product = - 0.028, 95% ACI [- 0.064, - 0.002]). However, no significant mediators were identified for the non-faith-based intervention. Neither intervention had significant moderators, indicating no differences in efficacy among adolescents differing in sexual experience, church membership, gender, and parent's gender. These findings suggest that parent-child faith-based sexual risk-reduction interventions among African American adolescents in church-based settings could benefit from focusing on boosting self-efficacy.
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Details
- Title
- Mediating Pathways in Faith-Based Sexual Risk-Reduction for African American Adolescents: Insights from a Church-Based Randomized Controlled Trial
- Creators
- Soojong Kim - University of California, DavisTerri-Ann Kelly - Rutgers, The State University of New JerseyLarry D Icard - Nelson Mandela UniversityJingwen Zhang - University of California, DavisLoretta S Jemmott - Drexel UniversityJohn B Jemmott - University of Pennsylvania
- Publication Details
- Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Number of pages
- 10
- Grant note
- National Institutes of Health: R01 MH 63070
This study was supported by a research grant from the National Institutes of Health (Grant #R01 MH 63070).
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- College of Nursing and Health Professions
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001483405500001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-105004480134
- Other Identifier
- 991022052248304721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Public, Environmental & Occupational Health