Adelante Youth Ambassadors: Using New Media to Facilitate Community Engagement and Risk Prevention for Latino Youth

Background:  Digital and social media are emerging health promotion activities that can increase engagement and improve health behaviors across a variety of age groups and health domains. However, limited research exists on applying culturally relevant, new media interventions specific to Latino immigrant youth. This paper describes the pilot AdelanteYouth Ambassador program for Latino immigrant youth, which used digital media and community-based participatory research to build Positive Youth Development (PYD) assets as a prevention mechanism to reduce co-occurring health risks.

Program background:  The Avance Center is an academic-community partnership to address health disparities among Latinos in Langley Park, MD. In collaboration with community partners, we implemented Adelante, a multi-level, community-based PYD intervention to reduce substance use, sexual risk, and interpersonal violence among Latino adolescents. The AdelanteYouth Ambassador program was a key prevention messaging activity and was part of an overall engagement strategy.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  Over 7 months, we worked collaboratively with ten youth ages 14-18 to create video content as a conduit for Adelante branded messages to be disseminated on the program’s social media platforms. Content creation was guided by the overarching Adelante brand of “turning the corner to a better life” and four themes from a simultaneous social marketing campaign:  Adelante is… (meaning of Adelante), making good choices, living your dream, and belonging to something bigger. Using an active audience engagement methodology, youth participants informed the development of prevention messages, scripts for the videos, and acted in videos. Participants disseminated content to their social media networks and engaged peers in dialogue about topics addressed in the videos. Using pre-post tests, we evaluated changes in PYD assets (Civic Action Competence, Contribution, Confidence, Connection to Community, Connection to Peers) and skills related to new media use, communication, and advocacy. Over 100 messages and four videos were created across campaign themes. Youth recommended inclusion of topics relevant to their experiences: sexual health, contraception, differential family immigration status and acculturation, support networks, overcoming obstacles, and pursuing an education. Content was disseminated and tracked via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Youth social media interest, use, and platform preference varied. According to pre-post test results, two-thirds of participants showed an increase in the PYD construct of Civic Action Competence and over half showed an increase in Community Connection. Additional results from dissemination tracking, user engagement, and pre-post tests will be presented.

Conclusions:  The AdelanteYouth Ambassadors program used innovative branding and social media strategies to engage Latino youth in health risk prevention.

Implications for research and/or practice:  The process for working collaboratively with Latino youth for the development of user-generated video content and messaging for prevention is described. Examples of the resultant videos and social media content are presented. The process of integration of the youth activity within a larger place-based social marketing campaign is described, assisting with the replication of this engagement strategy for prevention programming with other hard-to-reach populations.