Primary Research With Hard-to-Reach Youth Informs Teen Dating Violence Prevention Initiative

Background:  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Violence Prevention developed a communications program, i2i: What are You Looking For? (i2i), to promote respectful, nonviolent dating relationships among 11- to 14-year-old youth in high-risk urban communities (YHRUC), as part of Dating Matters, a comprehensive teen dating violence (TDV) prevention initiative.  Due to concentrated poverty, lack of resources, and exposure to community violence, this audience may be at an increased risk of TDV. In addition, few health communication programs have been effective in reaching this target audience and have focused on the specific topic area of TDV. 

Program background:  The communications program, i2i, was developed for and is being implemented by Health Departments in four communities, including Alameda County, CA, Baltimore, MD, Broward County, FL, and Chicago, IL. 

Evaluation Methods and Results:  To inform i2i message and program development, focus group research, including formative audience research and message and concept testing, was conducted in 2011 and 2012. On behalf of CDC, Ogilvy completed a total of 52 focus groups with 300+ YHRUC ranging in age from 13-18 years old. The presentation will share key findings, including: • YHRUC consistently identified healthy and unhealthy relationships, but often reported engaging in unhealthy behaviors. There was a clear gap between what teens know is a good relationship behavior versus what relationship behaviors in which they actually engage. • Participants often emphasized the importance of asking older teens who have experience for relationship advice. • Literacy and comprehension levels varied among the participants. More specifically, teens struggled with defining relationship keywords beyond basic words such as trust or honesty, as a number of relationship-related terms were brand new to teens. • Teens preferred short snippets of content over longer passages and relied heavily on visuals. Based on this extensive research, CDC and Ogilvy designed a youth communications program that includes, offline materials, community specific Facebook pages and SMS programs, and a brand ambassador program (led by 15 to 18 year old youth).

Conclusions:  The presentation will detail how the i2i program design is highly reflective of our research findings.  For example, due to a baseline understanding of healthy and unhealthy relationships, the program focuses on empowering youth to better align knowledge with practice.   And while most of the younger participants noted the need for more guidance with relationships, they lacked a place to seek this guidance.  The program fills this void by providing younger youth with clear “leaders” in the brand ambassador program.  The research also shed light on important materials development considerations, such as color choice and material format and size.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Research findings and their application to the i2i program will provide similar programs with valuable insight into designing communications programs for and engaging this hard-to-reach audience, for which limited information is publicly available.