Chat About It: Implementing and Evaluating a Sexual Health Campaign with Youth of Color

In the U.S., youth face barriers to high-quality culture-centered health education and healthcare, leading to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. This health burden falls disproportionately on youth of color in Southern states. Researchers partnered with Fact Forward to design, implement, and evaluate the “Chat About It: We’re in your corner” 10-week health communication campaign. The culture-centered health communication campaign aimed to increase awareness and use of sexual health services with a focus on youth of color in South Carolina. The study implemented a campaign evaluation pretest–posttest web-based survey among young people (ages 18–24) in South Carolina. The campaign resulted in over one million total impressions. Over two-thirds of respondents who saw the campaign indicated that it prompted them to perform a positive health behavior, with the most common behavior being discussing sexual health with a partner. Respondents with a higher PME score were over seven times more likely to seek sexual health services after seeing messages from the campaign. Findings highlight the importance of formative audience research and message testing in campaign design. By developing health communication campaigns in partnership with the target audience, health communicators can enhance engagement and improve perceived message effectiveness and campaign acceptability. Health communication campaigns may help address knowledge gaps in sexual health education.