Feasibility, Acceptability, and Preliminary Efficacy of an HIV Prevention Intervention for Older Black Women - ABSTRACT ABSTRACT Older Black women continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV, making up less than 15% of the female population yet accounting for half of new HIV infections in women in the United States. Older Black women are not concerned with pregnancy prevention and are less likely to use condoms which exposes them to contracting HIV. Also, older Black women are often overlooked when it comes to HIV prevention services, due to ageism and stigma about high-risk behaviors among older adults, and lack of an empirical base about their sexual behavior. Dr. Laneshia Conner, a junior faculty member in the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky, is in active pursuit of developing her research skills to become an independent researcher through further training in local engagement, mixed-methods analyses, implementation science, and professional development by mentors who are well funded by NIH and have a history of training early career faculty members. Through the proposed research strategy and training plan for this K01 Career Development Award through NIA, Dr. Conner will acquire skills to launch her research program in four areas: locallyengaged research among older adults, mixed methods research, intervention development, and expansion of professional skills for a successful research career. The proposed project will revise and implement a HIV prevention program intervention, after it is adapted to address unique gaps in HIV prevention that target older Black women. Working with two low-income housing complexes for adults over the age of 50 and a local center that serves the Black community, older Black women will be recruited to participate in a multisession, group-level behavioral intervention adapted to address both physiological risk as well as low perception of risk. High unknown serostatus suggest that HIV prevalence may be higher than reported among older adults. The overall objective of this innovative project is to add reproductive health histories as an intervention component of the HIV prevention program. Specific aims are: (1) Revise the HIV prevention program intervention for older adults to identify and incorporate key reproductive health history themes, and (2) Implement the revised HIV prevention program to a group-level intervention for older Black women to evaluates feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy through a small, pilot RCT. This project provides an intervention manualized protocol on how to adapt an HIV prevention intervention for older Black women; and preliminary data on the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of the intervention outcomes. Secondly, implementation and assessment procedures will inform a subsequent full-scale R01 randomized clinical trial. Lastly, healthcare researcher, Dr. Conner, will complete career development opportunities that align with development an intervention of HIV risk reduction among older Black women.
