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

Abstract

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