Investigating the Moderating Role of Food Security on Group Session Attendance of an HIV/STI Intervention for Black Women Under Community Supervision.

BACKGROUND: Empowering African-American Women on the Road to Health (E-WORTH) is a five-session, culturally-tailored, group-based intervention with demonstrated effectiveness in reducing HIV/STI risk among Black women under community supervision. This study aims to examine the moderating effect of food security on STI prevalence among participants who attended group sessions. METHODS: We fit modified Poisson regression models to examine the effectiveness of group sessions on reducing cumulative STI incidence and explored the moderating effect of food security in models. RESULTS: Compared with those in the control arm, E-WORTH participants who attended all group sessions and were food-secure had a 77% reduction in STIs (p<.05). Findings were not statistically significant among food-insecure participants. CONCLUSION: Results indicate the importance of food security in enhancing the effectiveness of E-WORTH's group-based intervention. Additional research about mediators of group modality and the importance of meeting basic needs is needed to improve E-WORTH implementation.