Community Influences Transitions in Youth Health (CITY) Health II - Center for the Study of Community Health

The goal of this 5 year project is to promote HIV testing and improve HIV-related risk behaviors (e.g. condom use, substance use before sex, regular Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) testing) via population-sensitive and population-specific HIV prevention videos that are appealing, evidence-based, scalable, and sustainable to the target population. Formative research was conducted in Phase I (Year 1-2), to pre-test the questionnaire and gather in-depth data (via focus groups, intercept interviews, and individual structured interviews) to inform intervention development. Phase 2 of the project involved developing, delivering, and subsequently evaluating the efficacy of peer-driven EE HIV prevention messaging to broader social networks via a social media platform, with the platform contingent on formative data. An HIV education video series, "The Beat HIVe", was produced and served as intervention materials for the quasi-experimental research project. Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) was used to access and use the social networks of high-risk youths as channel and agents for change. RDS is a recent innovative adaptation of chain-referral network sampling that provides peer-driven access to hard-to-reach subpopulations while reducing sampling biases associated with conventional snowball sampling.