The Teenage Access Project (TAP), located in Birmingham, Alabama, was designed to expand and ensure access to health and support services for disadvantaged, HIV-positive, and at-risk young women by:

• preventing further HIV transmission in disadvantaged adolescent females ages 10-21 through empowerment and reduction of risk behavior;

• providing HIV counseling and testing in order to increase the screening of young women; and

• facilitating referrals to medical and psychosocial services through TAP activities.

Based in the University of Alabama School of Medicine, TAP was the first project in the Section of Adolescent Medicine to focus upon HIV-related issues as they pertain to at-risk young women. The project’s staff, which is 86% female and 43% African American, recognizes that: 1) African American adolescents and impoverished or disenfranchised youth are disproportionately affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic; 2) because young women have unique developmental and cultural needs, they require different support services than young men, such as childcare, family planning, counseling, and group support; and, 3) out of 152 HIV-infected young Alabama women identified since 1986, 60% reported heterosexual contact as their only risk factor, as compared to 16% out of 171 for their male counterparts.

The table below outlines the 3 basic elements of the Teenage Access Project.

Due to poor attendance and lack of use of the ATC by targeted agencies during TAP’s first year, the project staff transformed its original, central clinic-based model into a community-based model in which TAP services could be provided in settings familiar to the area’s at-risk women. For example, in addition to providing care at the local adolescent health center and teen maternity clinic, the project began offering HIV counseling and testing, as well as group empowerment and risk reduction activities, at the county juvenile detention center and the juvenile corrections facility.

As a result, in its first 3 years, TAP contacted 403 young people and provided services to 328 of them. Of those clients who accessed TAP services, 101 women and 68 men were tested for HIV, with 74% returning for test results and post-test counseling. The innovative aspect of the University of Alabama’s Teenage Access Project is that no other project in Jefferson County has linked adolescent-specific prevention, risk reduction and empowerment efforts with HIV counseling and testing as a means of increasing HIV screening, access, and linkages to care.

For further information contact Marsha S. Sturdevant, M.D., Project Director, Teenage Access Project, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Basement, The Children’s Hospital Building, 1630 Sixth Avenue South, Birmingham, Alabama 35233, 205.934.5262, 205.975.7307 (fax), pedp044@uabdpo.uab.edu (e-mail).

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