Youth United Through Health Education: community-level, peer-led outreach to increase awareness and improve noninvasive sexually transmitted infection screening in urban African American youth

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of the Youth United Through Health Education (YUTHE) program, a community-level, peer-led outreach program to increase awareness and improve noninvasive sexually transmitted infection (STI) screening in youth residing in the targeted community.

Methods: Sexually experienced youth, aged 12-22 years, anonymously participated in the YUTHE program (a 15-minute encounter, including a risk assessment with feedback and prevention messages). A street- and venue-based intercept approach using a nonequivalent control group design was implemented to evaluate the YUTHE program.

Results: YUTHE community respondents were more likely to know that STIs could be asymptomatic (odds ratios [OR] 1.36, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.08-1.72), know about urine-based STI screening tests (OR 1.34, 95% CI 1.04-1.72), perceive themselves to be at risk for STIs (OR 1.71, 95% CI 1.11-2.62), and worried about acquiring an STI (OR 1.50, 95% CI 1.04-2.18). No other community differences were identified. However, respondents who reported a single contact (OR = 2.12, 95% CI = 1.11-4.03) or multiple contacts (OR 2.78, 95% CI 1.81-4.26) with the YUTHE program were more likely to have been tested for STIs in the previous six months.

Conclusions: We did not accomplish our overall goal of increasing STI screening in our outreach community relative to the comparison community; our findings suggest that a peer-led, street- and venue-based community outreach approach is a feasible means for reaching large numbers of adolescents for STI prevention.