Effectiveness of a Community-level HIV/STD Prevention Intervention in Promoting Safer Sexual Behaviors in High-risk Populations

The C-POL intervention will teach identified opinion leaders to share personalized HIV prevention messages in conversations with peers in an effort to change community norms. Opinion leaders will be taught skills for sharing HIV risk-reduction messages during four to five weekly training sessions. At least 15% of the community population will be trained as opinion leaders. After the initial training, opinion leaders will attend six to nine booster sessions over the next 2 years to reinforce and support continued conversation efforts.

Communities will receive HIV/STD educational materials and treatment referral information to distribute to community members.