Combatting HIV Transmission in South African Teens

Associate Professor Mary McKay will work to prevent AIDS among teens in South Africa, with the support of a five-year grant from the Community Mental Health Council.

McKay plans to develop ways to adapt the Collaborative HIV Prevention and Adolescent Mental Health Project (CHAMP), which has proven to be successful with inner-city youth in New York and Chicago, to a township in South Africa.

“An estimated 4.5 million people are living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa,” McKay says. “This number is increasing by about 1600 new infections a day. It has grown 30-fold since 1990.”

McKay and her team will examine the impact of a community collaborative partnership model as a vehicle for the delivery of critically needed HIV preventative interventions by partnering with behavioral scientists at the University of Durban-Westville. The South African Collaborative Board will create a family-based HIV prevention program.

The CHAMP Collaborative Board model, developed and tested in the United States with 10 years of support from the National Institute of Mental Health, has overseen the development, delivery and evaluation of family-based HIV preventative intervention programs. It is made up of urban community residents, representatives of community-based organizations and university-based researchers. The CHAMP programs target inner-city youth and their families in urban low-income communities of color in Chicago and New York, two epicenters of the HIV virus in the United States.

McKay, who is also helping to build the capacity of health professionals in African nations, recently hosted a group of AIDS researchers from South Africa at CUSSW.