Successful STD Prevention Video

With 19 million new infections occurring each year, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) continue to be a major public health concern in the United States. Safe in the City, a new 23-minute video developed by EDC's Health and Human Development division and partner organizations, has resulted in a 10 percent reduction in STD infections among patients visiting clinics who viewed it.

“Because the intervention is a stand-alone DVD, it requires little staff time and no training. Just put it on and let patients watch it,” says Athi Myint-U, one of EDC’s researchers who worked on the project. “The fact that something so brief and easy-to-use can make this much of a difference is really quite significant.” Research on the video’s effectiveness compared clinic patients who watched the video with patients who had not.

Safe in the City features three realistic scenarios that show different couples faced with challenging or uncomfortable situations and modeling positive behaviors to prevent STDs, such as talking with a partner about using a condom. Two short animated segments explain the various types of condoms and demonstrate how to use them correctly.

“We tried to make the vignettes as entertaining as a soap-opera,” says Myint-U. As co-chair on the intervention committee that developed the video, she drafted the key messages and identified the primary obstacles to condom use. The collaborative work of the committee, refining the focus and revising the script for the actors, resulted in an intervention that has been well-received.

“The enthusiastic response to Safe in the City among STD clinics and health departments is really gratifying,” says Myint-U.

It has been selected as a successful intervention for HIV prevention by the Centers for Disease Control’s Diffusion of Effective Behavioral Interventions (DEBI) program, and is now available to clinics and public health departments across the country.

“This is an intervention that is low-cost, easily implementable, and potentially has high levels of coverage in one of the most important target populations for STD prevention programs— individuals seeking care in STD clinics,” says John Douglas, director of the CDC Division of STD Prevention.

The CDC has also selected Safe in the City to be one of five videos now offered as part of popular HIV prevention package, VOICES/VOCES, another intervention developed by EDC that uses video-based vignettes to convey important messages about HIV prevention to clinic patients. VOICES/VOCES, however, has an additional component—the opportunity to talk about and practice preventive behaviors. After viewing the video, small group discussions led by trained facilitators engage patients in discussions and role-playing around the importance of condom use.

VOICES/VOCES has been very effective in reducing new STDs and encouraging condom use among clinic patients and, like Safe in the City, is also one of the DEBI interventions. The culturally-specific videos developed for VOICES/VOCES are geared for Latinos or African Americans, who experience disproportionate rates of STDs. Safe in the City, with its multi-ethnic characters, offers an option for agencies implementing VOICES/VOCES with a more culturally-diverse clientele.