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JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, THE

The National Survey of Adolescent Males (NSAM) Center for Adolescent Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The main impetus of the original (parent) grant, NSAM: Wave 4: HIV/STD Risk Trajectories is to gain a more comprehensive and developmental understanding of HIV/STD risk behaviors among a nationally representative sample of males, who range in age from 32 to 39. The specific aims of this project are to: (1) Examine the extent of different sexual risk-taking clusters of men based on behaviors reported in previous waves; (2) Differentiate various trajectories of sexual risk-taking across all four waves of data; (3) Assess the behavioral trajectories & sexual identification of men who have sex with men (MSM); (4) Describe and model factors positively and negatively influencing sexual risk-taking trajectories; (5) Report on prevalence of male behaviors in a nationally representative sample. To date we have conducted 737 interviews (via telephone and in-person). This supplement has been facilitating the fulfillment the above mentioned specific aims with the employment of students and three teachers during summer 2009. The students and teachers are gaining invaluable knowledge and skills relevant to understanding, studying, and disseminating sexual and reproductive health information. The supplement is designed to both provide hands-on research experience to undergraduate and graduate students, and teachers, while expediting the completion of original project goals. In summer 2009, the students are assisting with a number of critical NSAM project tasks. These include: tracking and soliciting difficult NSAM respondents; conducting literature reviews and other support tasks related to manuscript preparation, to expedite dissemination of project findings; assisting Dr. Jacinda Dariotis with the examination of National Death Index Data to identify deceased NSAM participants; assisting with analyses to understand causes of mortality in the NSAM panel; assisting with the development of conference presentations; and assisting with the development of the NSAM Wave 4 Codebook for the Public Use dataset. Codebook development is a labor-intensive task, and includes writing about respondent characteristics, study design, sample attrition, assigning variable and value labels, sample frequencies, describing scale IDs and alphas, and formatting for publication. In summer 2009 and summer 2010, three teachers are working to develop training materials for other teachers on the topic of changes in adolescent male sexuality and sexual and reproductive health behaviors and outcomes over time. These materials will be based on findings from NSAM, and will include topics such as rates of sexually transmitted infections, risk prevention, prevention of pregnancy, romantic relationships, intention to have children, and fathering behaviors. These training materials will be designed to be used by both middle school and high school science and health teachers.

Clarification of Codes