Department of Prevention and Community Health, George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States of America.
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Nov 18;19(11):e0313882. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0313882. eCollection 2024.
HIV incidence among young people (Black and Latinx women and men who have sex with men ages 16-24 years), in the United States is high. Traditional top-down approaches for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) social marketing are not effectively reaching this population. Crowdsourcing is a promising approach to engaging young people in the development of innovative solutions to raise awareness and use of PrEP among those at highest risk of HIV. This study engaged young people in the design and evaluation of an online crowdsourcing contest to promote PrEP among Washington, DC youth. The contest used standard methods recommended by the World Health Organization and feedback from our community partners. Online recruitment using social media elicited online votes and survey responses. We analyzed cross-sectional surveys using descriptive statistics, and semi-structured interviews with contest participants using thematic coding to explore barriers and facilitators to contest engagement. Approximately 82% of entries were from young people in DC. A convenience sample of 181 people voted on their favorite crowdsourced PrEP messages and shared their awareness and attitudes about PrEP. The contest website received 2,500 unique visitors and 4,600 page views. Themes from semi-structured interviews (n = 16) included the need for more community engagement in developing PrEP messaging and positive attitudes towards crowdsourcing. Survey data (n = 887) showed that the crowdsourced messages were well-liked and resonated with the community. Most preferred to see PrEP messages in social media (23%), email (17%) and videos (14%). Approximately 70% of survey participants reported that after viewing the crowdsourced message they would talk to their sexual partner or medical provider (63%) about PrEP, use PrEP (58%), and learn more about PrEP (56%). Crowdsourced messages solicit substantial online viewership. More implementation research is needed to understand the public health impact of integrating social media, crowdsourcing, and community engagement to develop PrEP promotional messages.
美国年轻人（16-24 岁的与男性发生性行为的黑人和拉丁裔男女）中的艾滋病毒发病率很高。传统的针对暴露前预防（PrEP）的自上而下的社会营销方法并不能有效地覆盖到这一人群。众包是一种很有前途的方法，可以让年轻人参与到开发创新解决方案中来，提高高危人群对 PrEP 的认识和使用。本研究让年轻人参与到设计和评估一个针对华盛顿特区青年的在线众包竞赛中，以推广 PrEP。该竞赛采用了世界卫生组织推荐的标准方法和我们社区合作伙伴的反馈。通过社交媒体进行在线招募，吸引了在线投票和调查回复。我们使用描述性统计分析了横断面调查，并对竞赛参与者进行了半结构访谈，使用主题编码方法探讨了参与竞赛的障碍和促进因素。大约 82%的参赛作品来自华盛顿特区的年轻人。通过方便抽样，181 人对他们最喜欢的众包 PrEP 信息进行了投票，并分享了他们对 PrEP 的认识和态度。竞赛网站收到了 2500 个独特访问者和 4600 个页面浏览量。半结构访谈（n=16）的主题包括在制定 PrEP 信息方面需要更多的社区参与，以及对众包的积极态度。调查数据（n=887）显示，众包信息很受欢迎，与社区产生了共鸣。大多数人更喜欢在社交媒体（23%）、电子邮件（17%）和视频（14%）上看到 PrEP 信息。大约 70%的调查参与者表示，在观看了众包信息后，他们会与性伴侣或医疗服务提供者（63%）谈论 PrEP，使用 PrEP（58%），并了解更多关于 PrEP（56%）的信息。众包信息吸引了大量的在线浏览量。需要更多的实施研究来了解整合社交媒体、众包和社区参与来开发 PrEP 宣传信息的公共卫生影响。
