‘I learned to be okay with talking about sex and safety’: assessing the efficacy of a theatre-based HIV prevention approach for adolescents in North Carolina

Abstract

Adolescents are at increased risk of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the Southern states of the USA, where rates among youth are higher than in the rest of the nation. This paper reports on findings from a pilot study of an HIV prevention intervention that uses interactive theatre to educate young people about sexual health. The intervention was developed in Los Angeles and adapted for testing in the Southern USA, with its legacy of abstinence-based approaches to sexual health education. This study assessed intervention effects among a sample of young people in two public high schools in North Carolina. We used a pre-test, post-test quasi-experimental evaluation design to assess changes in 317 ninth-grade participants' knowledge and attitudes about HIV. At post-test, we found statistically significant increases in participants' HIV knowledge (t = 60.14; p = 0.001), as well as changes in attitudes (χ² = 8.23; p = 0.042) and awareness (χ² = 4.94; p = 0.026). Focus group data corroborated an increase in HIV knowledge and a reduction in HIV stigma as successful outcomes of intervention participation. The findings make an important contribution to the literature on theatre-based interventions for sexual health education. Furthermore, they highlight the importance of considering sociocultural and political context in implementing HIV prevention interventions in schools.

Keywords::

• HIV prevention
• adolescents
• sex education
• theatre-based intervention
• USA

View correction statement:

Corrigendum

Acknowledgements

We thank David Gere, Bobby Gordon, Elisabeth Nails and the entire UCLA Art & Global Health Center team for their leadership in developing the AMP! programme, and guidance in implementing AMP! in North Carolina. We thank Norweeta G. Milburn and Ian W. Holloway, members of the AMP! research team, for their input. We thank Stephanie Finkbeiner, Amanda Houpt, Susan Kirtz and Megan Nelson, graduate students from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, for their assistance in reviewing the literature on theatre-based interventions in public health. We thank school district partners, administrators and teachers for their support.

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interest to report.

Notes

This article was originally published with errors. This version has been amended. Please see Corrigendum (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2015.1067963).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a developmental grant from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), an NIH-funded program [P30 AI50410], a Ford Foundation [Grant 1120–1496] and funding from the David and Linda Shaheen Foundation, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and a Ueltschi course development grant from the University of North Carolina's Center for Public Service's APPLES Service-Learning Program. The participation of research assistant and doctoral candidate Tamara Taggart was supported by a fellowship from the National Institute of Allergy And Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health [Award Number T32AI007001].