Study Details

A separate study by the original group of researchers evaluated the program when implemented outside of school on a broad scale by local community-based organizations. The study used a cluster randomized controlled trial involving 86 community-based organizations in New Jersey and Philadelphia, PA. The study randomly assigned half the organizations to a treatment group that implemented the program and half to a control group that implemented a general health promotion curriculum. Surveys were administered immediately before the program started (baseline); immediately after the program ended, and three, six, and twelve months after the program ended.

The study findings failed to replicate the favorable impact on frequency of sexual intercourse found in the original study of the program by Jemmott (1992). However, the study also examined program impacts on four outcomes not measured in prior studies of the program: (1) consistency of condom use in the prior 90 days, (2) proportion of condom-protected sexual intercourse acts in the prior 90 days, (3) frequency of condom use in the prior 90 days, and (4) use of condoms at last intercourse. When averaging data across the three follow-up surveys, the study found statistically significant program impacts for the first three of these outcomes.