Projects

Despite early advances, HIV has been on the rise in Uganda, making it a persistent public health problem. Since 2005, when HIV prevalence was at its lowest, the percentage of people living with HIV in Uganda has risen from 6.4% to 7.3%. This translates into 1.4 million people living in Uganda with HIV. The HIV prevalence increases for both men and women as the age into their older adolescents. Alarmingly, recent data suggests that for woman, the HIV prevalence triples from 1.6% to 5.1% over a two-year period – as they age from 15-17 to 18-19 years of age. Clearly, curbing the HIV epidemic in Uganda requires access to culturally salient and theoretically-driven HIV prevention programming for adolescents as they age through this period of risk.

To that end, we are currently developing, SMS Senga, the first-of-its-kind comprehensive HIV prevention program for Ugandan adolescents sent via text messaging. The program will be delivered to 18-22 year old Ugandans adolescents, aptly timed to arm them with the skills necessary to reduce their HIV risk precisely as they move through a high-risk period. In Uganda, the Senga is the father’s sister typically responsible for offering female children advice and guidance – including sexual health advice – to youth as they transition from childhood to adulthood. Adolescents will be recruited nationally, online using Facebook, and is the first study that we are aware of that proposes to test an intervention nationally in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The program will be developed and tested in partnership with colleagues at Internet Solutions for Kids – Uganda. This work is being funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

HIV and AIDS continue to be a public health problem, and this is particularly true in sub-Saharan Africa.  Concurrently, there has been an explosion in technology use. Taking advantage of this increased access, we developed and tested an online, evidence-based HIV prevention program designed for adolescents in Uganda called CyberSenga.  In Uganda, the Senga is the father’s sister typically responsible for offering female children advice and guidance—including sexual health advice—to youth as they transition from childhood to adulthood.  The Kojja is the male equivalent.

We adopted the Senga and Kojja concepts to present a culturally salient, trustworthy role model for the youth to follow throughout the intervention.  The CyberSenga program provides information about HIV, shows young people useful ways to solve problems and communicate with others about their needs, and shows young people how to use condoms properly.

The website was developed and tested in partnership with colleagues at Mbarara University Science and Technology, Harvard University, and the University of Colorado.

Cybersenga Website: cybersenga.com