New R34 Awarded to DC CFAR Social and Behavioral Sciences Core Co-Director, Maria Cecilia Zea, PhD and Core Senior Scientist, Paul Poppen, PhD


July 28, 2016

Zea Poppen
DC CFAR Social and Behavioral Sciences Co-Director, Maria Cecilia Zea, PhD, along with her co-investigator, Core Senior Scientist, Paul Poppen, PhD, has recently been awarded an R34 from the National Institutes of Health entitled, "A Webnovela-Based Intervention to Promote HIV Testing Among Colombian MSM".
 
This project will use a community-based participatory research (CBPR) to develop a webnovela, and examine the feasibility and acceptability of the webnovela as an intervention to increase HIV testing among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Colombia. This study builds upon previous research, which identified an urgent need to increase detection of HIV among Colombian MSM, who constitute the country's most highly affected group. Based on the communication strategy of entertainment-education, transportation-imagery theory, and information avoidance theory, the goal of this project is to create an engaging entertainment vehicle with embedded information and social messages that alter viewers' knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and social norms relative to HIV testing.
 
Click here to read the full abstract.