The use of social media by AIDS Foundation of South Africa to promote HIV testing and prevention following the release of Universal Test and Treat policy in 2016.
Loading...
Date
2021
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
HIV prevention and testing are important in preventing the spread of Human
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), but
many people are still engaging in unsafe sexual practices. In 2015 the national Department of
Health in collaboration with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
initiated a policy called Universal Test and Treat (UTT) policy that sought to support and
encourage more prevention and treatment towards HIV/AIDS. UTT policy as HIV prevention
policy became effective to South Africa in 2016 to further promote HIV testing and prevention.
The policy established some guidelines that sought to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS through
reducing HIV infection and related death by 2020, with the UNAIDS recommending that 90%
of people should know their HIV status, 90% of positive people should receive a sustained
Antiretroviral treatment, and 90% of people receiving treatment should be viral suppressed
(WHO, 2016). Much research was focused on preventive measures and barriers that prevented
people from accessing health care services. The problem for the study is based on the
effectiveness of social media platforms in communicating health information, to ascertain
whether these platforms are effective or not in communicating HIV messages. From the
literature reviewed there has not much studies done to explore the effectiveness of social media
for HIV communication after the release of UTT Policy in 2016. This study focuses on the
effectiveness of Facebook in promoting of HIV testing and prevention with the AIDS
Foundation of South Africa (AFSA) page as the case study to explore the promotion of the
UTT towards increased HIV prevention and testing efforts.
This was done by using purposive sampling to purposely select posts that were posted by AIDS
Foundation of South Africa on their Facebook page only posts on HIV testing and prevention
following the release of UTT policy and these posts were collected from September 2016 to
December 2019 and the researcher also explored ways in which AFSA messages reflect the
national Department of Health HIV prevention and testing messages in the same year period.
To understand the effectiveness of social media platforms in communicating HIV prevention
messages, the qualitative content analysis was used to collect and interpret data gathered from
AFSA’s and NDoH’s Facebook pages on HIV prevention and testing and public comments
were also analysed and interpreted. The collected data from the qualitative content analysis
was analysed through the use of thematic data analysis. The coding sheet for the two health
organisations was established to create codes. Categories and themes were extracted from the
coding process and further discussed. Social media health interaction theory provided the conceptual framework for the research to
discuss the effectiveness of social media on health-related issues. The researcher found that
social media such as Facebook is effective for HIV communication and AFSA as one of the
key health organisations in South Africa was using these platforms to further promoted HIV
testing and prevention from 2016 to 2019 following the release of UTT policy. Social media
platforms are effective platforms that can be used to communicate health related messages
particularly on HIV testing and prevention.
Description
Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.