The Influence of HIV and AIDS Radio Public Service Announcements (PSAs): A Pan-Regional Experience

This report examines exposure to HIV and AIDS public service announcements (PSAs or "spots") broadcast on radio across Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania. The report is based on research undertaken to evaluate the impact of an HIV and AIDS campaign initiated by BBC World Service Trust with support from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Viacom. The research indicated that there is potential for PSAs to have an impact on self-reported attitudes and knowledge around HIV and AIDS. The research also shows that there is an association between levels of exposure to radio PSAs on HIV and AIDS, and the proportion of respondents self-reporting changes in attitudes and in knowledge around the benefits of testing.

According to the report, these PSAs were the first public education campaign addressing HIV and AIDS across the developing world to be aired on the BBC World Service. The first wave of PSAs went on-air on World AIDS Day (December 1) 2003, and the campaign was completed in January 2004. Each PSA was broadcast on 8 BBC World Service language streams (Caribbean English, English for Africa, French, Hausa, Kinyarwanda, Portuguese, Somali, and Swahili). The first wave of PSAs was informed by qualitative research in which each participating BBC World Service language team asked its listeners on air to respond to the question: "What is the most important issue concerning HIV and AIDS in your country, and why?" Over 1,000 responses were received by email, text message, and letter, and were then analysed by the PSA producers to identify the range of common concerns across each country. The most significant issues for listeners were clustered according to the following themes:

• abstinence and delay of sexual debut;
• fidelity;
• promotion of condom use and reducing embarrassment associated with purchasing and using condoms; and
• risk perception and the benefits of testing.

Two surveys were administered during the course of the project, one before the first wave of PSAs and the second after the third wave of PSAs. In the month directly before the launch of the first wave, a survey using a stratified random sample of 1,500 BBC World Service listeners was carried out in Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania. The following outlines what the research found:

• Reach of HIV and AIDS messages on the BBC World Service - The majority of respondents across all 3 countries said they had heard about HIV and AIDS on the BBC World Service in the past year. Nigeria had the lowest proportion of respondents with heavy exposure, and the highest proportion of respondents who had not heard the spots or had only light exposure. Kenya and Tanzania had similar average exposure levels, with Tanzania having a slightly higher average proportion of respondents saying they had not heard each PSA.
• Levels of exposure to PSAs and the association with self-reported attitudes and knowledge - Over 80% of respondents across Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania who had heard the PSAs said that it had changed their attitudes in some way, the greatest number being in Kenya, the lowest in Nigeria. In comparison to the baseline, endline figures for those with medium and high exposure show an increase in the proportion of respondents demonstrating knowledge of the benefits of testing. There is no increase for those with low exposure. The research indicated an association between levels of exposure and respondents' knowledge about testing for HIV and AIDS.

According to the report, the project and research learnings from the evaluation were as follows:

• Pan-regional interventions are likely to be dealing with very different audience needs. Subsequently, any understanding of the impact of PSAs needs to account for the fact that each country is likely to be starting from different bases. It is unlikely that PSAs will have uniform effects across participating countries.
• The initial formative research in each country was valuable, and sensitised the producers to the barriers and facilitators to developing appropriate messaging strategies.
• There are considerable challenges in developing a pan-regional radio campaign. Production of the PSAs had to account for: strict editorial policy requirements of the BBC World Service; audience differences in language, religion, media consumption, and cultural sensitivities; and differing HIV and AIDS information needs - taking different prevalence rates and health service provision into account, across the intended countries and language groups.
• According to the report, this research has indicated the potential for PSAs to have an impact on self-reported attitudes and knowledge around HIV and AIDS, but also suggests there is some evidence that there may be a "ceiling" on the ability of radio PSAs to have an impact where baseline knowledge is already high. Conversely, evidence indicates the potential for impact of radio PSAs where the intervention is targeting an issue with a relatively low baseline.