Abstract: Developing and Testing the Effectiveness of a Safer Sex Video Game for Young Adult Urban African-American Heterosexual Men in the U.S (2010 National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media)

Leslie Snyder, PhD¹, Kirstie Farrar, PhD², Frank Biocca, PhD³ and Corey Bohil, PhD³, 1Dept. of Communication Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 2Communication Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, 3MindLab, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

Theoretical Background and research questions/hypothesis: Poor, urban African-American men remain at high risk of HIV transmission, but are rarely targeted by health interventions once they are out of school, in part because of the difficulty in engaging this group in educational interventions.The presentation will describe the development of an innovative approach to reach this target group - an interactive video game. The majority of young African-American men play video games, and it is possible that they may willingly engage with safer sex messages that are imbedded in a fun game. Game development drew on social cognitive theory, attention and information processing theory, the theory of planned behavior, the information, motivation, behavioral skills model, and evaluations of other video games on health topics.

Methods: The safer sex video game Nightlife was developed after 3 years of formative research, including focus groups and qualitative interviews around gaming and safe sex, storyline and script pretests, reactions to safer sex dialogues and character depictions, and pretests of drafts of the game, and quantitative testing of types of relationships and safe sex practices. The purpose of the game is to promote condom use, HIV/STI testing, and risk reduction through oral sex and mutual masturbation.

Results: The presentation will review the process of developing the game and present lessons relating game design principles, a behavior change model, players’ reactions to the game, and preliminary outcome data. The game is currently being tested in a national randomized control trial with African-American men age 18-26 years old. Preliminary analysis indicates that the game is well liked.

Conclusions: Video games can be a viable, innovative channel to reach target groups that are otherwise difficult to reach.

Implications for research and/or practice: Care needs to be taken to base game design decisions on theory and research, and to test each stage of game development with the target group.

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