Abstract
Sexual and reproductive health remains one of the greatest challenges in developing countries. In Uganda, adolescents are the most vulnerable group of the population as far as HIV epidemic is concerned. Mass media awareness campaigns play a key role in promoting sexual and reproductive health among adolescents. Using Uganda’s 2016 Demographic Health Survey, we examine the causal effect of mass media exposure on the probability of adolescents getting an HIV test and their HIV-related knowledge. Our results suggest that the exposure to mass media increases both adolescents’ likelihood to get tested for HIV and their HIV-related knowledge score. In fact, we find that reading newspapers once a week increases the likelihood of an adolescent to test for HIV by 6.29 percentage points. Listening to radio once a week increases the probability to test for HIV by 4.57 percentage points. This effect increases to 6.56 percentage points when the adolescent listens to the radio more than once a week. Watching TV more than once a week increases adolescents’ probability to get tested for HIV by 8.57 percentage points. For HIV-related knowledge, we find that compared to adolescents who do not read newspapers at all, adolescents who read newspapers less than once a week and those who read newspapers at least once a week have a higher score of HIV-related knowledge of 9.12% and 9.64% respectively. Compared to adolescents who do not listen to radio at all, adolescents who listen to radio less than once a week have a higher (5.88%) score of HIV related knowledge. Moreover, listening to radio at least once a week increases the score of HIV-related knowledge by 5.52%. Hence, mass media awareness campaigns are important policies to promote HIV testing and HIV-related knowledge among adolescents in Uganda.
Highlights
HIV epidemic and related diseases remain the leading causes of preventable mortality among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa (USAIDS, 2017)
The estimates of the effect of mass media on HIV testing suggest that reading newspapers once a week increases the likelihood of an adolescent to test for HIV by 6.29 percentage points
Compared to adolescents who do not listen to radio at all, adolescents who listen to radio less than once a week have a higher (5.88%) score of HIV knowledge
Summary
HIV epidemic and related diseases remain the leading causes of preventable mortality among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa (USAIDS, 2017). In a study in Uganda and Kenya, Kadede et al (2016) finds that 91%, 74%, and 45% respectively in early (10–14 years old), mid (15–17) and late (18–24) adolescents have never been tested for HIV in Uganda. This causes a serious risk for HIV epidemic spreading among adolescents since knowledge is an important prevention factor for any disease (Kaale and Muhanga, 2017). Kaale and Muhanga (2017) finds that almost a quarter of teenagers still lack basic knowledge on HIV transmissions in Tanzania To address this public health issue, mass communication plays a key role (Vidanapathirana et al, 2005).
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