The Mpowerment Project

The Mpowerment Project is a model community building and HIV prevention program that has been designed specifically to address the needs of young gay/bisexual men ages 18 – 29. It is the first documented HIV prevention intervention for young gay/bisexual men to succeed in reducing sexual risk behavior. The program has been carefully developed, evaluated and continually refined over the course of 15 years by prominent behavioral scientists from the University of California, San Francisco's Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, a leading-edge HIV/AIDS research institution.

In 1999, it was one of the first programs to be included in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Compendium of HIV Prevention Interventions with Evidence of Effectiveness. It is the only program included that is designed specifically to address the HIV Prevention needs of young gay/bisexual men and other young men who have sex with men (MSM).

History
Recognizing the critical need for HIV prevention programs for young gay/bisexual men, Dr. Susan Kegeles and Dr. Robert Hays, research psychologists at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at the University of California, San Francisco, applied for funding to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to design, implement, and evaluate a community-level HIV prevention program for young gay/bisexual men. Their five-year grant was awarded in 1990. They developed their initial ideas for the program by drawing from the findings of their surveys of young gay/bisexual men; from a series of focus groups and from the research literature in social, developmental, and community psychology.

They pilot tested the program in Santa Cruz, CA. Based on encouraging results there, they refined the program and implemented it in a second community (Eugene, OR), where it was named the Mpowerment Project. Following the program's success in Eugene, it was replicated in Santa Barbara, CA. In 1995 Drs. Kegeles and Hays received a second five-year grant form the NIMH to further develop the program for use in major metropolitan areas across the U.S. Dr. Greg Rebchook, a research psychologist who had worked at a department of public health and at a community-based organization, joined the team in 1996. This new grant enabled them to implement the Mpowerment Project in Albuquerque, NM - where the project was called MPower (1997-1998); and in Austin, TX - where the project was called Austin Men's Project / AMP (1999-2000). Since 2002, numerous organizations have implemented the program with varying success.

Alaska

 * Anchorage - Adam & Steve

California

 * San Luis Obispo - Fusion
 * Los Angeles - MPOWER OC

Florida

 * Ft. Lauderdale - M Project
 * Wilton Manors - FUSION

Idaho

 * Pocatello - Genesis Project

Illinois

 * Champaign-Urbana - Mpowerment CU

Louisiana

 * Lafayette - FM Project

Michigan

 * Detroit - MPowerment Detroit

New Mexico

 * Albuquerque - MPower

Ohio

 * Dayton - the Mu Crew