Videos for HIV Prevention Among Urban MSM in India: Getting tested is the new sexy!

Summary

There are over 2 million men who have sex with men (MSM) in India. Since gay sex was against the law in India until as recently as September 2018, MSM face fierce stigma and barriers to come out in public and access healthcare. This presents a serious challenge to encourage HIV prevention and treatment behaviors among MSM. Safe Masti, operated by Blue Lotus Advisory with the support of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, is a platform producing online content targeted at urban MSM in India between the ages of 18 and 30 to generate HIV prevention awareness, create demand for services, and promote linkage to care for HIV management. Launched in December 2016, Safe Masti runs a multimedia website featuring videos and educational content, publicized through targeted advertising on social media sites. Safe Masti videos promote HIV prevention behaviors such as using condoms, PrEP, and regular HIV testing, with messaging to combat stigma surrounding HIV and homosexuality. In the evaluation period of January 1 to December 31, 2018, Safe Masti's website was accessed by close to 100,000 unique visitors (96,879), with over one-third of visitors spending more than four minutes on the site. Findings show what works in online communication campaigns, particularly relatable characters tailored to regional cultures and incessant engagement through targeted advertising. Safe Masti's campaign demonstrates the potential of online engagement to widen outreach within the young MSM community in India and ensure behavior change for healthy sexual practices, HIV testing and linkage to care.

Background/Objectives

Low-cost smart phone usage in India creates the possibility to enhance awareness, demand and uptake of HIV related services, especially for hidden and stigmatized groups that are hard to reach through conventional public health programs. Safe Masti targeted young men who have sex with men (MSM) ages 18-30 in six Indian cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Chennai) with multimedia content using social media advertisements. Safe Masti produced relatable, informative and fun videos with the aim to generate HIV awareness, enable access to HIV testing services and promote acceptance of diverse sexual identities and sexual practices.

Results/Lessons Learned

Overall findings from the evaluation carried out between January 1 and December 31, 2018 show that Safe Masti reached its intended target audience with substantial engagement. Survey responses from 376 website visitors indicate users were ages 18-30 and identified as gay or bisexual. Of the 96,879 unique website visitors, over one-third were non-bounce visitors spending more than four minutes on the site. Facebook was the largest contributor to traffic to the website and lowest cost per landing page. Among the six target cities, Pune had the highest ratio of number of visitors per 1,000 population (122.66) and Mumbai had the lowest (51.55), suggesting that the interest in Safe Masti content may be higher in smaller cities where there are fewer informational options. Another key learning is that ensuring the pathway from initial engagement to action requires continuous online engagement and ease of service access.

Discussion/Implications For The Field

Safe Masti's campaign sheds light on what works in online communication campaigns to reach young MSM users active on social media with HIV testing and treatment messaging. Cost-effectiveness analysis strongly suggests that Facebook is the most cost-effective channel to draw meaningful traffic among young MSM in India. Significant engagement was generated from outside of the six targeted cities, indicating there is a wider need and interest in Safe Masti content in India. Future efforts should consider target locations with smaller overall populations with a high MSM concentration and incorporate multilingual versions to tailor content across India's cultural diversity.

Abstract submitted by:

Rose Pollard - JHU
Samit Tandon 
Harsh Agarwal 
Anamika Mishra