Perceived message effectiveness to evaluate updated concepts for a national HIV testing campaign for African American women

ABSTRACT

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched Take Charge. Take the Test.™, a national, communication campaign focused on the overarching goal of increasing HIV testing among African American women in March 2012. We surveyed 200 members of the campaign’s priority audience to inform selection of updated concepts for the campaign. Two of the potential concepts (Love Yourself More and Look Out for Yourself) were updated versions of the original campaign concepts, and three (Control of My Life, Personal Potential, and Strong Sisters) were newly developed. Look Out for Yourself and Love Yourself More had the highest mean ratings on the perceived effectiveness scale (PES) and were not significantly different from each other. Control of My Life had the third highest mean rating on the PES and was not significantly different from Love Yourself More. All three concepts were rated significantly higher than Personal Potential and Strong Sisters (P < 0.01). Across all concepts, prior intentions to get tested in the next 6 months was a positive, statistically significant predictor of the PES (P < 0.001). Higher perceived effectiveness was significantly associated with agreement that the concept motivated the respondent to get tested for HIV across all five concepts (P < 0.001). The findings support framing HIV testing as a matter of personal responsibility and emphasizing the importance of getting tested so that women can be there to participate in their children’s lives as effective messaging strategies for African American women.

KEYWORDS:

• Communication
• African Americans
• HIV infections
• mass screening
• motivation

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Ayanna Robinson for her contribution to the literature review and Lisa Gilbert for her contributions to data collection and analysis.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval

The study design was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at RTI International (a registered trademark and a trade name of Research Triangle Institute).

Notes on contributors

Jennifer Uhrig, PhD, directs RTI’s Center for Communication Science and has 20 years of experience in health communication and health services research, including initial exploratory research, content development, pretesting, and comprehensive process and outcome evaluation.

Kimberly Leeks, PhD, a health scientist in the CDC's Division of Population Health, has 16 years of experience in public health research and evaluation working on a range of public health issues.

Jo Ellen Stryker, PhD, Associate Chief for Science in CDC’s Prevention Communication Branch, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, has 20 years of health communication experience, with specific expertize in how communication influences health behaviors.

John Shadle, MA, an economist in RTI’s Center for Health Policy Science and Tobacco Research, is experienced in statistical programing, data management, and analysis.

Carla M. Bann, PhD, an RTI Fellow of Statistics and Psychometrics, has 20 years of experience in advanced statistical and psychometric analyses for longitudinal and cross-sectional data.

ORCID

John Shadle http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3100-6950

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by contract 200-2013-F-57505 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of CDC.