The Effect of an Entertainment-Education Intervention on Reproductive Health of Young Women of Color

ABSTRACT

While teen pregnancy rates in the United States have been declining for decades, they remain the highest of all western countries. Within the U.S., Black and Latina teens experience disproportionate rates of unplanned pregnancy. Plan A is an entertainment-education video intervention that was developed to help address these disparities, in part by emphasizing the ability of young cisgender women to control when they become pregnant by using an effective contraception method. The intervention was developed in close collaboration with the target audience (Black and Latina women aged 18–19) to ensure that it was relevant, engaging, and motivational. We conducted an online study to: (a) investigate the effects of Plan A on attitudes toward the contraception methods covered in the video; (b) whether these effects varied by race/ethnicity or age, and; (c) if identification with characters in the video mediated these effects. The study used a posttest-only design where participants were randomly assigned to watch Plan A or to a neutral control condition. The sample included Black, Latina, and non-Latina White women aged 16 to 19 (N= 242), with younger and White women included for comparison purposes. Results indicated that exposure to Plan A significantly improved attitudes toward long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) among all age groups and among young Black and Latina women, but not White women. These findings may be explained by participant’s identification with the Black and Latina lead characters – both of whom model positive reproductive health behaviors.

Notes

1. The specific item was “Which of the following terms best describes your gender identity?” and the response options were “female,” “male,” and “other (with a textbox).” Respondents who chose “Male” were screened out. In addition, the questionnaire also assessed people’s sexual orientation (“What best describes your sexual orientation?”). The majority or the sample self-identified as “heterosexual (60.7%),” followed by “bisexual (19.6%),” and “lesbian (5.4%).” Importantly, when responding to the sexual orientation item, 14.3% of the sample chose “Other” or “Prefer not to say.”

2. Given the fact that identification has to be assessed separately for each of the four leading characters, we decided to use a shorter version of the identification scale (Murphy et al., 2013) rather than the complete 9-item version (Cohen, 2001).

Additional information

Funding

The project described was supported by Grant Number TP2AH000036 from the HHS Office of Population Affairs. Contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not represent the official views of the Department of Health and Human Services or the Office of Population Affairs.