For some Mexican migrants, the opportunities for receiving HIV-related interventions may be quite limited, especially for migrants who are in transition from one locale to another and who may not have the residential stability oftentimes required by HIV prevention programs.  Such transient populations may benefit from HIV prevention programs provided by individuals with similar backgrounds as theirs who are able to provide HIV-related information in informal one-on-one settings in the migrants’ own environments.  This project seeks to determine whether a peer education intervention with Mexican migrants is just as effective as a provider-based small group HIV prevention lecture as measured by the recipients’ HIV knowledge, HIV-related risk reduction skills, self-efficacy with respect to such skills, and intentions to engage in low-risk practices.

A total of 612 Mexican migrants will be recruited.  Mexican migrants from three migrant shelters in Mexicali will be trained as peer educators of a theory-driven HIV prevention intervention.  Each peer educator will conduct individual educational interventions with other Mexican migrants.  An outcome evaluation will be conducted to determine the extent to which those who received the peer education intervention differed from the recipients of the small group HIV prevention lecture with regards to the areas mentioned above and how both interventions differed from a no-treatment control group.