Developing and Examining Evidenced-Based HIV Testing Messages
Condition: HIV/AIDS
MeSH terms: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; HIV Infections
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The goals of this study are to:

        1. Develop a HIV test message tailored for African American women. A generic non-tailored
           message will be developed as well for comparison. A third group will be included that
           will not be exposed to any message at all.

        2. Test the effectiveness of both messages on reported future intentions to get tested for
           HIV and HIV test behavior at 3 month follow up.
    

Detailed description: 
      African American women have the highest risk and prevalence of HIV infection among women of
      all racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Many of the current HIV infections among young
      adult African American women remain undiagnosed. The established benefits of routine HIV
      testing, the limitations of safer sex programs, and the gap of research related to increasing
      HIV testing as prevention necessitates the need for future research that specifically targets
      mechanisms to increase HIV testing. Higher rates of HIV testing can decrease rates of HIV
      transmission, as individuals who are knowledgeable of their status are less likely to
      transmit the virus. The current literature is sparse on factors related to HIV testing among
      young adults and has largely only examined demographic and sexual behavior correlates of HIV
      testing. Additionally, no studies have developed evidence-based health messages to promote
      HIV testing specifically among African American young women, despite their high risk of HIV
      infection and the importance of HIV testing. Thus, the proposed study will intend to identify
      factors related to HIV testing beyond the demographic and sexual risk level through formative
      research. These identified factors will be included as important elements in the development
      of HIV testing messages to motivate increased HIV testing. An enhanced message (culturally
      tailored) and a knowledge only message will be developed and tested.
    

Intervention name(s): HIV Testing Message Intervention; Control
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): The Health Belief Model will be utilized as the primary theoretical framework in guiding the development of a tailored HIV testing message for young African American women in this intervention. Two conditions will be developed and compared as outlined below. Condition 1 participants will be exposed to an HIV testing message inclusive of culturally tailored information that addresses both culturally specific barriers and facilitators of HIV testing (as identified in Study 1). The message will be brief (will take less than 3 minutes to present/read).; Condition 2 (generic message) participants will be exposed to a simple HIV educational message only, consisting of HIV statistics for women in the United States, information on how HIV is transmitted, where to get tested, and the benefits of HIV testing. The statistics on HIV and where to get tested will be taken directly from the CDC's website. The message will be brief (will take less than 3 minutes to present/read).
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention