Core Research Projects
CITY Health II: Utilizing Entertainment Education and Peer Networks to Reduce HIV Risk (2014–2019)
Principal Investigator
Susan L Davies, sdavies2@tulane.edu
Funding Source
CDC Prevention Research Centers Program
Project Status
Non-Active
Health Topics
HIV/AIDS & STD prevention
Research Setting
City | Neighborhood | Urban area
Race or Ethnicity
African American or Black
Gender
No specific focus
Age Group
Young adults (18-24 years)
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Davies, S.L., Smith, T.L., Murphy, B., Crawford, M.S., Kaiser, K.A., & Clay, O.J. (2020). CITY Health II – Using Entertainment Education and Social Media to Reduce HIV among Emerging Adults: A Protocol Paper for the Beat HIVe Project. Contemporary Clinical Trials.
Davies, S. L., Kaiser, K. A., Smith, T. L., & Clay, O. J. (2020). Using respondent-driven sampling, entertainment education, and social media to reduce HIV in the African American community. SAGE Research Methods Cases.doi:10.4135/9781529744187
In Alabama, African Americans make up 26% of the state’s population, but accounted for 65% of all persons living with HIV in 2011. Other than documenting barriers to care and health disparities, the HIV epidemic in the Deep South has not been well studied. To advance HIV prevention research and programs among high risk African Americans in the Deep South, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham developed Community Influences Transitions of Youth (CITY) Health II.
The CITY Health II project focuses on reducing risky HIV-related behaviors and increasing HIV testing and protective behaviors among African American emerging adults (i.e., young people ages 18-25) living in disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Birmingham, AL, area. Researchers will recruit 325 at-risk African American males and females to test an entertainment education (EE) program. Entertainment education programs have been shown to increase HIV testing, condom use, and intentions to engage in HIV prevention behaviors.
Treatment participants will watch a 9-video series created by CITY Health II researchers featuring audience–identified local musicians discussing HIV-related topics with HIV experts. Each episode has a discussion and a live performance by the featured musician. Topics include HIV testing, what it is like to live with HIV, condom use and negotiation, and more. Researchers will compare treatment participants to control group participants, who will only have access to the live performances. Using social media messaging (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), treatment participants will invite their peers (i.e., non-enrolled participants) to watch the EE episodes on a designated website and to forward the invitation to other peers. Researchers will track the diffusion of the social media shares and measure any synergistic effect of receiving the intervention and sharing it with peers simultaneously.
This project may inform several audiences of effective ways to reach into peer networks using modern communication technology to deliver HIV behavioral health messages. Research results will be shared through a variety of channels such as professional journals, conferences, community roundtables, and outreach activities.
