Female Condom

Health and Mental Health

Education

Arts and Culture

International

Sustained Safer Behavior (Female Condom Use) in High-Risk Women to Prevent HIV
Research Method: Basic Research
Principal Investigator: Margaret R. Weeks, PhD

Partners: Connecticut AIDS Education and Training Center
Grant: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) RO1 MH069088-01A2
Dates of Study: 2004-2007

Background
The female condom is among the most effective methods of preventing the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). As global HIV rates climb faster among women than men, more female-initiated prevention options would give women who are particularly vulnerable to contracting HIV/STIs better control of their sexual health. Though the female condom has been available on the American and international markets for nearly ten years, it remains hard to find and underutilized by these target populations.

After studying women's reproductive and sexual health in ICR's Microbicide Acceptability to Prevent HIV in High-Risk Women, project staff became interested in the female condom as an already available method of female-initiated prevention. In supplemental study Female Condom Use in High Risk Women as Predictor of Microbicide Readiness, project staff investigated factors that would make women who are particularly vulnerable to contracting HIV more or less likely to adopt female condom use. Sustained Safer Behavior (Female Condom Use) in High-Risk Women to Prevent HIV will build on that knowledge by researching multiple personal, relationship, and contextual factors that affect whether at-risk individuals initiate and sustain female condom use. The study takes place in Hartford, CT, where risk of HIV infection, especially among women of color, continues to be among the highest in the United States.

Project Findings Now Available
Summary format | Poster presentation | Lessons learned

Project Goals and Objectives


	Examine factors that affect initial and sustained use of the female condom for HIV/STI prevention by women at high risk of infection (including drug users, commercial sex workers, non-drug using sex partners of drug users, and women with multiple sex partners) and their male partners, after participants have received information about proper use & health benefits of the female condom.
	Examine personal network and sexual relationship factors that influence initial and sustained female condom use among high-risk women and men over time.

Project Details

Staff will conduct an ethnographic community assessment of female condom availability and cost during the first 6 months of the study, and then periodically throughout the remainder of the study. This assessment will monitor any significant changes in the environment in which the study is being conducted, and how these changes might affect female condom use and adoption over the course of the study. Staff will recruit 575 women who are at high risk of HIV/STI transmission to participate in a longitudinal survey. Administered at three time points (intake, 1-month, and 10-months), the survey will measure demographic, epidemiological (HIV/risk and prevention), psycho-social (attitudinal, personal agency), sexual relationship (partner, gender), and social network/peer influence factors. After the intake survey, project staff will inform participants about the female condom, demonstrate its proper use, and provide samples to them. Participants will be interviewed again at 1 month and 10 months with the same survey to measure changes over time in female condom use, attitudes about it, and factors expected to predict sustained use.

In addition, staff will recruit 75 women to participate in a partners' female condom trial. These individuals will then join the other 500 women to also partake in the longitudinal survey. The trial asks each woman and one of her male sexual partners (primary, casual, and/or paying) to incorporate the female condom into their normal sexual activity for a 2-week period. The couples will complete surveys and give interviews first at intake, again after the 2-week trial period, and finally after 10 months to assess their sexual relationship, gender dynamics, and other factors that affect their initial and sustained use of female condoms.

Project Findings
Summary format | Poster presentation (pdf)

Poster presentation for couples trial (pdf)

Female Condom Project Gets Media Attention Watch Channel 8 News for an interview with ICR Executive Director Margaret Weeks, Ph.D., about project findings.
Read a recent news article about the project.

Female Condoms: The Best Kept Secret in Women Initiated HIV Prevention

A presentation by ICR Director Margaret Weeks, Ph.D., at Yale University's

Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS.

Staff Contact:
Maryann Abbott

Project Director

(860) 278-2044 ext. 286

Project Staff:
ICR
Margaret R. Weeks, Ph.D. Principal Investigator

Julia Dickson-Gomez, Ph.D. Co-Investigator

Maryann Abbott, MA

Project Director

Evelyn Baez, BA

Field Coordinator