Description: This data set contains the responses of students in the ninth grade which involves testing two successful prevention curricula, namely, Amazing Alternatives, which is a peer-focused alcohol prevention curriculum, and the modified Reducing the Risk curriculum, a skills-based HIV-prevention curriculum.

It contains 290 variables and 1319 cases. Abstract: The project involves testing two successful prevention curricula, namely, Amazing Alternatives, which is a peer-focused alcohol prevention curriculum, and the modified Reducing the Risk curriculum, a skills-based HIV-prevention curriculum. The project, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, involves combined classroom and media intervention that are designed to be novel and participatory for those adolescents most likely to engage in sexual risk-taking and are affective in altering the number of crucial risk behaviours, including increasing likelihood of continued abstinence among those who have not yet had sex. The study design involves randomising 8 schools in the greater Pietermaritzburg area to an experimental or comparison condition. The control schools receive 4 sessions compared to 14 sessions in the intervention schools.

Focus group

Psychological measurements

Self-completion

Grade 9 students of peri-urban schools in Pietermaritzburg.

The project involves formative research and pilot-testing of a new alcohol and HIV prevention curriculum based on two successful curricula: Amazing Alternatives, a peer-focused alcohol prevention curriculum and the modified Reducing the Risk curriculum, a skills-based HIV prevention curriculum. In the first year of the study, the curricula was combined and adapted based on focus and reaction groups and collaboration with South African investigators. Pilot testing occurred in two schools.

During years 2 through 5 we recruited two cohorts of 9th grade students who were followed for two school years each. Eight peri-urban schools in the Pietermaritzburg area of KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa was randomized to the intervention curriculum or comparison curriculum conditions; each school was randomized to receive the small media campaign either during the first or second cohort. For each cohort, during the first school year, the alcohol and HIV prevention curriculum was implemented in intervention curriculum schools; during the second school year, the small media campaign was implemented in small media schools. Thus, during years 2 and 4 of the study the curriculum was implemented in intervention schools (for the two cohorts of students, respectively). During years 3 and 5 of the study the small media campaign was implemented in intervention schools (for the two cohorts of students, respectively).