Informing the Trending Sexual Health initiative: Results from the 2017 Warming Up survey.

The findings presented in this report contribute to a betterunderstanding of the sexual health-related attitudes, practices and needs of the population of young people targeted by the Trending Sexual Health initiative. In line with the results ofthe 2016 IYLL periodic survey (Adam et al. 2017), the findings indicate that there is a needto strengthen young people’s engagement with sexual health promotion. Sexual healthmessaging should not only recommend behaviours but comprehensively address mainfactors that limit uptake of condom use and testing for STIs among young people living inAustralia. Some of these barriers have been extensively described elsewhere and possibleways to address these factors through sexual health campaigns and other activities havebeen suggested (Adam et al. 2017). Previous research found that norms around condomuse and testing for STIs were one of the major determinants of sexual health relatedbehaviours and that strengthening norms should be an important objective of sexual healthpromotion campaigns and other initiatives. In this research we also found that the socialimages of young people who use condoms and test for STIs are important aspects toconsider. There is scope for improving the social images of young people who embracesexual health promotion and making them appear trendier could contribute to social andbehavioural change. These findings provide an empirical validation of the main idea thatwas at the origin of the Trending Sexual Health initiative and offer new directions for thedevelopment and implementation of campaigns and other activities targeting young peoplein Australia

Estimating the coverage of the FRANK sexual health promotion initiative and its contribution to strengthening sexual health-related attitudes and behaviours among respondents of the 2018 Warming Up survey

A sexual health promotion initiative called Frank was conducted in 2018 to promote a range of sexual health-related behaviours among young people aged 18-29 years in Australia. A survey was conducted among 1, 147 participants to estimate the level of awareness of the Frank initiative and assess its potential impact on attitudes, intentions and behaviours of young people in Australia. Of the participants, 8.4% reported having heard of the Frank website, including 4.0% who had visited the Frank website. Despite being lower than previously estimated, the level of awareness achieved in seven months by Frank was similar to what has been achieved by other sexual health promotion initiatives conducted online in Australia for a longer period. The analyses, which assessed any potential influence of having heard of the Frank website on sexual health-related behaviours, found some differences between participants who had heard of the Frank website and those who had not. These differences related to the frequency of sexual health conversations before engaging in sexual intercourse as well as the extent of condom use and testing for STIs. However, none of these differences were statistically significant, due to the low numbers of participants aware of the existence of the Frank website. It is likely that some of the differences observed could have reached statistical significance if the sample had included higher numbers of participants aware of Frank. In this respect, the results are encouraging and can contribute to the further strengthening of Frank and other sexual health promotion initiatives

An empirical assessment of the TALK TEST ENJOY sexual health promotion campaign conducted among young people aged 18-29 years as part of the Trending Sexual Health initiative

Sexually transmissible infections (STIs) are prevalent among young people in Australia and the strengthening of sexual health promotion targeting young people is a national public health priority. As part of these efforts, the FRANK – TALK TEST ENJOY (TTE) campaign was conducted in 2018 to promote talking about STIs, using condoms and testing for STIs among young people aged 18-29 years old. An evaluation study was conducted among 744 young people to assess the level of recognition of the TTE campaign among young people in Australia, their appreciation of the campaign as well as its potential impact on their sexual health-related intentions and on having tested for STIs or HIV in the time that followed the exposure to the campaign material. Participants reported a satisfactory level of engagement with the TTE campaign and most perceived it as relevant. Most participants perceived that the TTE campaign would have a positive impact on their sexual health-related behaviours and the empirical assessment conducted as part of the study demonstrated the campaign’s ability to influence young people’s sexual health-related intentions. While this positive impact on sexual health-related intentions is encouraging, no direct impact on recent uptake of testing for HIV or STIs could be observed. Motivating young people towards sexual health to an extent that would actually change their behaviours is a demanding task and using additional proven behavioural change approaches could contribute to further strengthen the sexual health promotion framework used as part of the TTE campaign