Peer-led public service announcement creation workshops for adolescent sexual and reproductive health education in Kenya

Public service announcements (PSAs) are a type of media campaign aimed at creating awareness or influencing behavioral change among viewers. PSAs have been used to address a range of health issues aimed at varying populations and have frequently and successfully been used to target adolescents. Focus groups are conducted with adolescents to elicit ideas and topics, but the PSAs themselves are created by external media companies. In addition, few published studies describe the methods of their peer-led programming. The Maneno Yetu study aimed to fill these gaps by providing descriptions of our PSA creation workshop process that was peer-driven from conception to completion. Nine PSAs were created focused on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) issues including family planning, substance abuse, peer pressure, HIV and sexually transmitted infections prevention, and sexual assault. The workshop participants enjoyed learning about storytelling and filmmaking and appreciated participating in a project that could have a beneficial impact on their peers. Our novel PSA creation approach was peer-driven from ideation to production and centered on topics and messaging relevant to adolescents in the communities we were partnering with. Our approach provided a communication channel to convey important SRH information tailored to the needs of adolescents in the community. The PSAs were low-cost, making the approach accessible to adolescents outside of the framework of a study in resource-limited settings. Our peer-led PSA creation approach can be applied toward other public health interventions to generate messaging that resonates with adolescents.