Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Apr 20, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 20, 2023 - Jun 15, 2023
Date Accepted: Feb 13, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The Stay Safe Project: Use of Customized Links to Improve Engagement with Sexual and Reproductive Health Among Young African American Males Online
ABSTRACT
Background:
Research has shown that heterosexual African American males within the age range of 18-24 have higher rates of STI prevalence and engage in higher rates of risky sexual behavior.
Objective:
The purpose of this study is to explore online engagement with young African American men in discussions about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care. This paper focuses on the recruitment and social media marketing methods used to target young, heterosexual African American men as part of the Stay Safe Project, a larger study which aims to promote SRH services for heterosexual African American men in Detroit who are aged 18-24.
Methods:
Participants were recruited between December 2021 and February 2022 through various platforms, including email listservs, Mailchimp, the UMHealthResearch website, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram using both paid and non-paid advertising. In this paper, we examine the use of TinyURL, a URL shortener and customization tool, and culturally-informed social media marketing strategies to promote online engagement with SRH care among young African American men in an urban setting.
Results:
The results of this study provide insights into how to leverage social media platforms to improve online engagement with young African American men seeking information and resources about SRH care.
Conclusions:
The results of the Stay Safe project have been used to further develop a pilot intervention for this population that will contribute to strategies for encouraging sexual well-being, clinic use, and appropriate linkage to SRH care services among young, heterosexual African American males.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.