Tuned in and turned off: Out‐of‐treatment injection drug and crack users' response to media intervention campaigns

Abstract

Evaluation research of public health media campaigns to influence behavior change often bemoans the lack of relevance to target audience and an absence of integrated interpersonal and mass‐mediated communication channels. The assumption that illegal drug users are disconnected from mass‐mediated communication may account for this absence of media interventions. The authors used crosstabulation, chi‐square, and regression analyses to demonstrate that many out‐of‐treatment drug users in an HIV‐prevention research project are, indeed, media consumers. Project participants who recalled seeing or hearing media interventions reported greater levels of positive behavior change than participants who did not recall such messages. Results suggest coordination of human and mass‐mediated public health messages relevant to this population to facilitate behavior changes.