JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Unsafe sexual behaviors among Black male adolescents and young adults (BMAYA) increase their susceptibility to negative health outcomes that widen persistent health disparities. Parent-adolescent relationships and communication can impact BMAYAs’ sexual health behaviors, but parents and adolescents often lack knowledge and effective tools to improve health outcomes. Culturally tailored sexual health interventions that integrate the intersectionality of race, gender, family, and social influences on sexual health are limited yet needed to reverse these trends.

Objective:

The goal of this project is to develop a nurse-led multi-pronged intervention, The TALK, a parent-centered, adolescent involved health promotion intervention for BMAYA.

Methods:

This mixed-methods study uses a community-engagement approach to develop and pilot a parent-centered eHealth intervention. There are three research phases, including development, usability for community of interest, and testing for real world usability. First, development of The TALK is tested with parents and caregivers using the dscout platform, a digital platform for virtual ethnographic research used to explore early-stage user experience. Second, we will recruit parent-adolescent dyads for a pretest-posttest survey data collection to examine the usability, acceptability, and preliminary intervention outcomes. This study phase focuses on the frequency and quality of parent-adolescent sexual health and racial discrimination communication, improvements in knowledge of HIV testing, improvements in parent-adolescent conversations around racial discrimination, and its impacts on sexual health and improved perceived racial identity among Black adolescents. Third, we examine the usability of the intervention’s web-based modules using promotion in the real-world settings of barbershops and beauty salons across North Carolina through signage (with QR code to scan and access the website). We will measure usability through website metrics, including page views, average time on page, average session duration, pages per session, bounce rate, and traffic sources.

Results:

This project was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and approved by the Duke University School institutional review board in September 2022 (Pro00105116) for development with the community. Intervention components were developed in partnership with community partners in the first year. Data collection for phase 1 began in October 2022. Data collection for phase 2 began in July 2023 and is ongoing.

Conclusions:

Culturally tailored interventions that include content on the intersectionality of race, gender, and family and social relationships combined with strategies to improve parent-adolescent communication have promise for promoting sexual health and reducing health disparities among Black male adolescents and young adults. The findings of this study have the potential to be generalizable to other populations.