Visitor Marketing And What You Need To Know
The authors evaluated a sexually transmitted disease (STD)-prevention program that combined a mass media campaign with peer education on the web.
Pre-intervention and post-intervention postal questionnaires were used with an intervention group and two types of control groups. Responses ranged from 32% to 67% for the randomly selected students and from 93% to 99% for classroom and clinic participants. The intervention was noticed by a majority of the students (85-98%) and discussed by 43% to 57% more women than men observed and discussed the campaign. Knowledge about STDs, where to turn for STD checkups, and the intention of having an STD checkup increased as per visitor statistics. Although it was successful in attracting attention and leading to discussions of STD prevention, the campaign did not encourage students to have an STD checkup.
University students may be said to live in a prolonged period of adolescence. They are at an age characterized by full sexual and general curiosity as they postpone marriage and childbearing because of long periods of study before they begin their professional careers. For some, the freedom of living on campus and replacing parental influence with peer pressure may lead to drinking excessive quantities of alcohol, experimenting with other drugs, and engaging in risky sexual behaviors. These behaviors, in turn, may facilitate the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
Many university students participate in globetrotting international exchange programs that pose another risk factor for the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Latman et al pointed out that university students may be at an especially high risk in an HIV-type epidemic all that is needed for an epidemic in the student population is an increase in the exposure to HIV. In his editorial comments in a 2006 theme issue of this journal devoted to studies of the sexual behaviors on college campuses that expose students to STDs, Keeling pointed out that few of the published accounts of prevention programs have included adequate evaluations of whether the interventions have affected students' behaviors.
From 2000 to 2005, we investigated sexual behavior among university students in Uppsala, Sweden. Almost half of the students said that their sexual behaviors had been affected by the AIDS debate, but their knowledge about the dangers of STDs was not always substantiated in their reported sexual practices. Our recognition that students' sexual behaviors were sometimes hazardous encouraged us to develop STD-prevention campaigns directed to the university students. The first intervention, a mass-media campaign to increase the students' awareness of the frequency of STDs in their own population, took place in 2005. It was successful in increasing awareness, but it did not have any positive impact on the sexual behavior.
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