HIV risk game improves sexual health

Intervention · Health

Intervention Description

HIV is a devastating problem in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in South Africa, which has the HIV/AIDS victims of any country in the region. Victims are disproportionally female, due to both physiological vulnerability and social factors like choice of sexual partner. Part of the reason for these social factors is a lack of information. For example, most women in the region believe that older men are safer as sexual partners, when they are in fact more likely to have HIV. To educate young women more effectively, researches created a video game in which they were presented with information about two fictional potential sexual partners, and asked which partner was more likely to have HIV. Individuals who played this game were much more likely to be able to produce correct answers months later than those who had been given education in a more tradition way (pamphlets, videos).

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