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Ladies, tell your boyfriend: Safe sex, or no sex
By Angela Delli Santi |
January 6, 2009, Tuesday
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US researchers hope a little drama - cell phone soap operas - can empower women to prevent AIDS. The message: no sex unless their partner uses a condom, writes Angela Delli Santi.
Hey baby, you OK?" Mike asks his girlfriend as she sits down next to him.
"Yeah, I'm OK," Toni says, and she puts her head on his shoulder. Mike thinks it's safe to move in for a kiss.
"Slow down," she says, pushing him back. "Just because I've decided to take you back, it doesn't erase the fact that you cheated on me." He looks away sheepishly.
"Look, we're going to be using condoms from now on," Toni says. "And tomorrow, we're getting tested. And that's that."
She kisses him, and Mike manages a little smile.
The scene is from a soap opera with a purpose: to use short videos to go beyond pamphlets on safe sex and deliver the message to women who might otherwise tune it out.
Nurse educator Rachel Jones developed the education campaign, using professional actors and scripts based on focus groups with women in Newark and Jersey City, in the US state of New Jersey. Mike and Toni and the "other woman," Valerie, are in a pilot video available online.
"Women who watched the first pilot were getting upset, angry, exasperated," says Jones, who teaches at Rutgers University's College of Nursing in Newark. "Women really saw themselves in that video. We're really resonating with urban contemporary themes that we believe are relevant to women."
Jones filmed a series of 12 soap opera vignettes with a grant from the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, and a recent grant of US$2 million from the National Institutes of Health grant to test the campaign's effectiveness.
Women in the federal study will watch the 20-minute episodes on their cell phones. Their risk-reduction behavior will be measured against a control group that will receive text messages urging condom use, but no video. A total of 250 women will participate.
"What we believe will happen is that knowledge alone is not effective at changing behaviors," Jones says. "We believe that women in the community will so identify with heroines in the story that their own behaviors will change as well."
The scripts feature "nitty-gritty stories of risk and risk reduction" that women can identify with, she said, adding that cell phone viewing ensures privacy and offers the viewer the chance to watch again and again as desired.
Jones has dedicated her career to reducing HIV/AIDS among young, urban black and Latina women, who are being infected at an epidemic rate. Some 82 percent of the infections affecting 18 to 29-year-olds are transmitted through heterosexual sex with an HIV-infected partner, she says.
"It is astounding, it is a completely preventable infection," says Jones. "In New Jersey, we have the highest proportion of women living with AIDS in the United States."
Jones has spent many years working in urban health, so she can explain why young female patients engaged in unprotected sex despite the known risks. But even she was surprised when she started looking for ways to change their behavior while she was earning a doctorate as a family nurse practitioner.
"I had very bright, wonderful patients who would come to me again and again with sexually transmitted infections," she says.
The women understood that they were being exposed to HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, but engaged in unprotected sex anyway; even those who knew they were not in monogamous relationships did not insist their partners wear condoms.
"We have to normalize condom use," she says.
Jones says women experience pressure to have unprotected sex and that their partners often consider insistence on using a condom as sign of distrust.
"These relationship concerns can feel much more important in the moment for some women than reducing HIV/AIDS, which can feel more distant," she says.
At the end of the study, all the participants will get a DVD with all the soap opera videos. The videos will also be available on the Web.
"If we know we're effective," Jones say, "we're going to dedicate ourselves to getting these videos out."
Hey baby, you OK?" Mike asks his girlfriend as she sits down next to him.
"Yeah, I'm OK," Toni says, and she puts her head on his shoulder. Mike thinks it's safe to move in for a kiss.
"Slow down," she says, pushing him back. "Just because I've decided to take you back, it doesn't erase the fact that you cheated on me." He looks away sheepishly.
"Look, we're going to be using condoms from now on," Toni says. "And tomorrow, we're getting tested. And that's that."
She kisses him, and Mike manages a little smile.
The scene is from a soap opera with a purpose: to use short videos to go beyond pamphlets on safe sex and deliver the message to women who might otherwise tune it out.
Nurse educator Rachel Jones developed the education campaign, using professional actors and scripts based on focus groups with women in Newark and Jersey City, in the US state of New Jersey. Mike and Toni and the "other woman," Valerie, are in a pilot video available online.
"Women who watched the first pilot were getting upset, angry, exasperated," says Jones, who teaches at Rutgers University's College of Nursing in Newark. "Women really saw themselves in that video. We're really resonating with urban contemporary themes that we believe are relevant to women."
Jones filmed a series of 12 soap opera vignettes with a grant from the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, and a recent grant of US$2 million from the National Institutes of Health grant to test the campaign's effectiveness.
Women in the federal study will watch the 20-minute episodes on their cell phones. Their risk-reduction behavior will be measured against a control group that will receive text messages urging condom use, but no video. A total of 250 women will participate.
"What we believe will happen is that knowledge alone is not effective at changing behaviors," Jones says. "We believe that women in the community will so identify with heroines in the story that their own behaviors will change as well."
The scripts feature "nitty-gritty stories of risk and risk reduction" that women can identify with, she said, adding that cell phone viewing ensures privacy and offers the viewer the chance to watch again and again as desired.
Jones has dedicated her career to reducing HIV/AIDS among young, urban black and Latina women, who are being infected at an epidemic rate. Some 82 percent of the infections affecting 18 to 29-year-olds are transmitted through heterosexual sex with an HIV-infected partner, she says.
"It is astounding, it is a completely preventable infection," says Jones. "In New Jersey, we have the highest proportion of women living with AIDS in the United States."
Jones has spent many years working in urban health, so she can explain why young female patients engaged in unprotected sex despite the known risks. But even she was surprised when she started looking for ways to change their behavior while she was earning a doctorate as a family nurse practitioner.
"I had very bright, wonderful patients who would come to me again and again with sexually transmitted infections," she says.
The women understood that they were being exposed to HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, but engaged in unprotected sex anyway; even those who knew they were not in monogamous relationships did not insist their partners wear condoms.
"We have to normalize condom use," she says.
Jones says women experience pressure to have unprotected sex and that their partners often consider insistence on using a condom as sign of distrust.
"These relationship concerns can feel much more important in the moment for some women than reducing HIV/AIDS, which can feel more distant," she says.
At the end of the study, all the participants will get a DVD with all the soap opera videos. The videos will also be available on the Web.
"If we know we're effective," Jones say, "we're going to dedicate ourselves to getting these videos out."
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