The BART Text Messaging HIV Awareness Project is a federally funded project designed to supplement a recognized HIV prevention curriculum, Becoming a Responsible Teen (BART), with cell phone text messaging. The project is being conducted in Charlotte, North Carolina through the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Project participants, ages 13-18, include 10 Teen Advisory Board members and 32 intervention participants. The Teen Advisory Board is responsible for helping the researchers develop text messages that reinforce session information and are appealing to teens. Intervention participants will attend the 8 sessions outlined in the BART curriculum. After each of the 8 sessions, they will be sent the developed text messages and will be asked to send text responses. The teens will receive a Blackberry and text messaging service during the time they participate in the program. In addition they will receive a stipend for participating in the project. The goals of the program are to adapt the curriculum to include a text messaging component, test the feasibility of its delivery, and collect preliminary data on its effectiveness in modifying sexual risk behaviors of African American adolescents.
