Abstract
BackgroundThe HIV pandemic impacts the lives of millions and despite the global coordinated response, innovative actions are still needed to end it. A major challenge is the added burden of coinfections such as viral hepatitis, tuberculosis and various sexually transmitted infections in terms of prevention, treatment and increased morbidity in individuals with HIV infection. A need for combination prevention strategies, tailored to high-risk key populations arises and technology-based interventions can be a valuable asset. The COVID-19 pandemic challenged the delivery of existing services and added stress to existing public health and clinical structures but also highlighted the potential of exploiting technical solutions for interventions regarding infectious diseases. In this paper we report the design process, results and evaluation findings from the pilots of ‘RiskRadar’—a web and mobile application aiming to support combination prevention, testing and linkage to care for HIV, viral hepatitis, various sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis.MethodsRiskRadar was developed for the INTEGRATE Joint Action’s aim to improve, adapt and pilot innovative digital tools for combination prevention. RiskRadar was designed iteratively using informed end-user-oriented approaches. Emphasis was placed on the Risk Calculator that enables users to assess their risk of exposure to one or more of the four disease areas, make informed decisions to seek testing or care and adjust their behaviours ultimately aiming to harm/risk reduction. RiskRadar has been piloted in three countries, namely Croatia, Italy and Lithuania.ResultsRiskRadar has been used 1347 times across all platforms so far. More than 90% of users have found RiskRadar useful and would use it again, especially the Risk Calculator component. Almost 49.25% are men and 29.85% are in the age group of 25–34. The application has scored 5.2/7 in the User Experience Questionnaire, where it is mainly described as “supportive” and “easy-to-use”. The qualitative evaluation of RiskRadar also yielded positive feedback.ConclusionsPilot results demonstrate above average satisfaction with RiskRadar and high user-reported usability scores, supporting the idea that technical interventions could significantly support combination prevention actions on Sexually Transmitted Infections.
Highlights
The Human Immunodeficiency Viruses (HIV) pandemic impacts the lives of millions and despite the global coordinated response, innova‐ tive actions are still needed to end it
Pilot results demonstrate above average satisfaction with RiskRadar and high user-reported usability scores, supporting the idea that technical interventions could significantly support combination prevention actions on Sexually Transmitted Infections
One-size-fits-all approaches have failed to support the broad and complex spectrum of HIV, viral hepatitis and Sexu‐ ally Transmitted Infections (STIs) prevention needs [4]; Effective prevention strategies for the different key populations most at risk [5] (i.e. Men who have sex with Men (MSM), People Who Inject Drugs (PWID), transgender people, sex workers, people living in prisons or other closed settings and migrants) indicate that interventions designed for specific populations and social contexts have enhanced the adoption of prevention behaviours and the uptake of care services [6,7,8,9]
Summary
The HIV pandemic impacts the lives of millions and despite the global coordinated response, innova‐ tive actions are still needed to end it. One-size-fits-all approaches have failed to support the broad and complex spectrum of HIV, viral hepatitis and STIs prevention needs [4]; Effective prevention strategies for the different key populations most at risk [5] (i.e. Men who have sex with Men (MSM), People Who Inject Drugs (PWID), transgender people, sex workers, people living in prisons or other closed settings and migrants) indicate that interventions designed for specific populations and social contexts have enhanced the adoption of prevention behaviours and the uptake of care services [6,7,8,9] To this end, a number of studies exploring the effectiveness and acceptability of such efforts show encouraging results regarding the uptake and actionable takeaways from Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)-assisted interventions [10,11,12,13,14]. In this paper we describe the design process and report on the results of the RiskRadar pilot test conducted in Croatia, Italy and Lithuania during the second half of 2020
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