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This study examined the reliability and validity of the Risk Behavior Assessment, a structured interview questionnaire designed to evaluate drug use and sexual HIV risk behaviors. Participants were 218 drug users currently not in treatment who completed the RBA two times over a 48-hour period and gave urine samples on both occasions. We examined internal consistency and test-retest reliability and found that, overall, drug users reliably report drug use and sexual behavior, although the reliability of reports of specific needle practice and sexual behavior items was somewhat lower. Validity results indicated that drug users' accurately report use of cocaine and opiates. These findings indicate that this self-report questionnaire, when administered by trained interviewers, reliably measures HIV risk behaviors in a drug-using population and provides a valid assessment of recent drug use.

Multiple risk factors are associated with sex trading among MSM. Interventions may need to address crack and injection drug use, homelessness, and childhood maltreatment and target non-gay-identified MSM who engage in sex trading.

OBJECTIVES: This study assessed the independent and combined effects of different levels of monetary incentives and a theory-based educational intervention on return for tuberculosis (TB) skin test reading in a sample of active injection drug and crack cocaine users. Prevalence of TB infection in this sample was also determined. METHODS: Active or recent drug users (n = 1004), recruited via street outreach techniques, were skin tested for TB. They were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 levels of monetary incentive ($5 and $10) provided at return for skin test reading, alone or in combination with a brief motivational education session. RESULTS: More than 90% of those who received $10 returned for skin test reading, in comparison with 85% of those who received $5 and 33% of those who received no monetary incentive. The education session had no impact on return for skin test reading. The prevalence of a positive tuberculin test was 18.3%. CONCLUSIONS: Monetary incentives dramatically increase the return rate for TB skin test reading among drug users who are at high risk of TB infection.

Project RESPECT was a multisite randomized trial comparing three clinic-based interventions' ability to increase condom use and prevent infection with HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. Because Project RESPECT had guiding concepts that determined the content of the sessions, the authors investigated how the intervention operated using these theoretical variables. Growth curve analysis and structural equation modeling estimated the correlation between intentions toward condom use and self-reports of condom use and isolated the treatment effects on mediating variables--attitudes, self-efficacy, and social norms--that predict intentions. The correlations between intentions and behavior exceeded .70 for both genders, justifying the emphasis on intentions. Project RESPECT was effective through changing attitudes and self-efficacy for females in both counseling interventions. For males, only enhanced counseling had significant effects on these two mediator variables.