Combining social media and behavioral psychology could lead to more HIV testing

Social media such as Twitter and Facebook can be valuable in the fight against HIV in the United States, where research has demonstrated they can prompt high-risk populations to request at-home testing kits for the virus that causes AIDS, suggesting a way to potentially boost testing rates. But does it lead to actual testing, and can it work outside the United States? A new study from the UCLA AIDS Institute and Center for AIDS Research published online Dec. 15 by the peer-reviewed journal Lancet HIV suggests that it can. The study, conducted in Peru among men who have sex with men, found that participants in the intervention arm of a randomized controlled clinical trial were more than twice as likely to be tested for HIV than those who joined a social media group and were provided with traditional HIV prevention services. The intervention, called Harnessing Online Peer Education (HOPE), combines social media with behavioral psychology to encourage people in high-risk populations to get tested, said Sean Young, assistant professor of family medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and executive director of the UCLA Center for Digital Behavior. "This shows that it's not just social media that got people to test, but the HOPE social media interventions and the psychological ingredients it used for changing behavior," Young said. "In other words, if you're a public health organization or worker, don't just think that throwing something on Facebook or Twitter will solve your problems and change people's behaviors.