This study evaluates the ability of a safer sex televised public service announcement (PSA) campaign to increase safer sexual behavior among at-risk young adults. Independent, monthly random samples of 100 individuals were surveyed in each city for 21 months as part of an interrupted-time-series design with a control community. The 3-month high-audience-saturation campaign took place in Lexington, KY, with Knoxville, TN, as a comparison city. Messages were especially designed and selected for the target audience (those above the median on a composite sensation-seeking/impulsive-decision-making scale). Data indicate high campaign exposure among the target audience, with 85%-96% reporting viewing one or more PSAs. Analyses indicate significant 5-month increases in condom use, condom-use self-efficacy, and behavioral intentions among the target group in the campaign city with no changes in the comparison city. The results suggest that a carefully targeted, intensive mass media campaign using televised PSAs can change safer sexual behaviors. Keywords mass media campaign; public service announcement; safer sex HIV prevention intervention research over the past 15 years has begun to show impressive results. A number of studies have shown delay of onset of sexual initiation (e.g., Coyle, Kirby, Marin, Gómez, & Gregorish, 2004), whereas other programs have led to significant increases in condom use in populations including heterosexually active individuals (see Johnson, Carey, Marsh, Levin, & Scott-Sheldon, 2003;Neumann et al., 2002, for reviews). However, most of these interventions have been implemented in small-group (e.g., Belza et al., 2001), school (e.g., Blake et al., 2003;Gallant & Maticka-Tyndale, 2004), or individuallevel clinical settings (e.g., Morrison-Beedy & Lewis, 2001). Mass media campaigns, such as televised public service announcement (PSA) campaigns, have recently been shown to be highly effective in changing a variety of behaviors (Hornik, 2002;Noar, 2006) 2001). For a number of reasons, however, the full potential of these types of media campaigns in the HIV prevention area has not yet been realized (Dejong, Wolf, & Austin, 2001;Myhre & Flora, 2000). In fact, campaigns focused on safer sexual behavior to date have tended to yield modest campaign effects (Snyder & Hamilton, 2002). Thus, we raise the following question: Can a televised PSA campaign based on formative research and sophisticated targeting principles change safer sexual beliefs and behaviors in at-risk young adults? The current study is a rigorous evaluation of a two-city, televised safer sex mass media campaign targeted toward increasing safer sex in young adults who are high sensation seekers and impulsive decision makers.
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MASS MEDIA CAMPAIGNSAs noted by Randolph and Viswanath (2004), "Mass media campaigns to promote healthy behaviors and discourage unhealthy behaviors have become a major tool of public health practitioners in their efforts to improve the health of the public" (p. 419). Although the early h...
