Designing Contextually Relevant Workshops to Enhance Latina Mother-Daughter Communication about Sexual Topics

Can a mother-daughter communication training program affect Latina adolescents’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to sexual behavior? This research will test an intervention that aims to teach low-income Latina mothers to be more comfortable and effective in discussing sexuality with their daughters and to encourage their daughters’ educational goals. Workshops will be added to a Santa Barbara community-based organization’s family-based pregnancy prevention program to make the program culturally and contextually relevant to Latina adolescents and their mothers. The study will then evaluate 90 Latina mother-daughter pairs participating in the culturally enhanced intervention and 90 pairs in a control group. Comparisons will be made between styles and level of comfort in communication about sexuality, changes in knowledge and communication about HIV transmission, and the girls’ academic motivation. The investigator will measure effects by comparing the reported sexual behaviors, protective/preventive behaviors, and related attitudes of girls from the two groups, and by identifying mediators of attitudes and behaviors over a follow-up period of 12 months.