IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v67y2008i4p628-637.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effectiveness of web-based education on Kenyan and Brazilian adolescents' knowledge about HIV/AIDS, abortion law, and emergency contraception: Findings from TeenWeb

Author

Listed:
  • Halpern, Carolyn Tucker
  • Mitchell, Ellen M.H.
  • Farhat, Tilda
  • Bardsley, Phil

Abstract

Little evidence is available about the utility of web-based health education for students in low resource settings. This paper reports results from an evaluation of the TeenWeb project, a multi-year, web-based health education intervention implemented in two urban settings: Nairobi, Kenya (NÂ =Â 1178 school students) and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (NÂ =Â 714 school students). A quasi-experimental, school-based pre-test/post-test design was implemented at each study site to determine if easy access to web-based reproductive health information, combined with intellectual "priming" about reproductive health topics, would result in improved knowledge and attitudes about topics such as condom use, access to HIV testing, emergency contraception and abortion laws. Students in web-access schools completed one web-based module approximately every 6-8 weeks, and in return, had access to the Internet for at least 30Â min after completing each module. Although students were encouraged to access project-supplied web-based health information, freedom of web navigation was an incentive, so they could choose to access other Internet content instead. Most measures showed statistically significant differences between students in "web" and "comparison" conditions at post-test, but only about half of the differences were in the hypothesized direction. Results of an embedded experiment employing more directed feedback tripled the likelihood of correctly reporting the duration of emergency contraception effectiveness. Review of URL logs suggests that the modest results were due to inadequate exposure to educational materials. Future intervention should focus on teen's purposeful searching for health information when they are in personal circumstances of unmet health needs.

Suggested Citation

  • Halpern, Carolyn Tucker & Mitchell, Ellen M.H. & Farhat, Tilda & Bardsley, Phil, 2008. "Effectiveness of web-based education on Kenyan and Brazilian adolescents' knowledge about HIV/AIDS, abortion law, and emergency contraception: Findings from TeenWeb," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 628-637, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:67:y:2008:i:4:p:628-637
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(08)00235-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gray, Nicola J. & Klein, Jonathan D. & Noyce, Peter R. & Sesselberg, Tracy S. & Cantrill, Judith A., 2005. "Health information-seeking behaviour in adolescence: the place of the internet," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(7), pages 1467-1478, April.
    2. Berger, Magdalena & Wagner, Todd H. & Baker, Laurence C., 2005. "Internet use and stigmatized illness," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(8), pages 1821-1827, October.
    3. Skinner, Harvey & Biscope, Sherry & Poland, Blake, 2003. "Quality of internet access: barrier behind internet use statistics," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(5), pages 875-880, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Virginia A Fonner & Kevin S Armstrong & Caitlin E Kennedy & Kevin R O'Reilly & Michael D Sweat, 2014. "School Based Sex Education and HIV Prevention in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-18, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Foster, Drew, 2016. "‘Keep complaining til someone listens’: Exchanges of tacit healthcare knowledge in online illness communities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 25-32.
    2. Dedding, Christine & van Doorn, Roesja & Winkler, Lex & Reis, Ria, 2011. "How will e-health affect patient participation in the clinic? A review of e-health studies and the current evidence for changes in the relationship between medical professionals and patients," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 49-53, January.
    3. Alina Duduciuc, 2014. "Teenagers And The Use Of New Technologies (Ict) For Health Information," Studies and Scientific Researches. Economics Edition, "Vasile Alecsandri" University of Bacau, Faculty of Economic Sciences, issue 20.
    4. Lena V Nordheim & Malene W Gundersen & Birgitte Espehaug & Øystein Guttersrud & Signe Flottorp, 2016. "Effects of School-Based Educational Interventions for Enhancing Adolescents Abilities in Critical Appraisal of Health Claims: A Systematic Review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-21, August.
    5. Ronzani, Telmo Mota & Higgins-Biddle, John & Furtado, Erikson F., 2009. "Stigmatization of alcohol and other drug users by primary care providers in Southeast Brazil," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 1080-1084, October.
    6. Harvey, Kevin James & Brown, Brian & Crawford, Paul & Macfarlane, Aidan & McPherson, Ann, 2007. "'Am I normal?' Teenagers, sexual health and the internet," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 771-781, August.
    7. Trondsen, Marianne & Sandaunet, Anne-Grete, 2009. "The dual role of the action researcher," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 13-20, February.
    8. Zhao, Shanyang, 2009. "Parental education and children's online health information seeking: Beyond the digital divide debate," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 1501-1505, November.
    9. Gatti, Fabiana Maria & Brivio, Eleonora & Calciano, Sara, 2016. "“Hello! I know you help people here, right?”: A qualitative study of young people's acted motivations in text-based counseling," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 27-35.
    10. Vikkram Singh & Joshua Chobotaru, 2022. "Digital Divide: Barriers to Accessing Online Government Services in Canada," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-12, September.
    11. Linda Haddad & Omar El-Shahawy & Roula Ghadban & Tracey E. Barnett & Emily Johnson, 2015. "Waterpipe Smoking and Regulation in the United States: A Comprehensive Review of the Literature," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-21, May.
    12. Matthew Greenwood-Nimmo & Kalvinder Shields, 2017. "An Introduction to Data Cleaning Using Internet Search Data," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 50(3), pages 363-372, July.
    13. Shiu, Edward & Walsh, Gianfranco & Hassan, Louise M. & Parry, Sara, 2015. "The direct and moderating influences of individual-level cultural values within web engagement: A multi-country analysis of a public information website," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 534-541.
    14. Tefft, Nathan, 2011. "Insights on unemployment, unemployment insurance, and mental health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 258-264, March.
    15. Dan Huang & Zhiyong Li & Jian Mou & Xinyi Liu, 0. "Effects of flow on young Chinese consumers’ purchase intention: a study of e-servicescape in hotel booking context," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-26.
    16. McKinley, Christopher J. & Limbu, Yam, 2024. "Promoter or barrier? Assessing how social media predicts Covid-19 vaccine acceptance and hesitancy: A systematic review of primary series and booster vaccine investigations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    17. Runtong Zhang & Xinyi Lu & Wen Wu & Xiaopu Shang & Manlu Liu, 2018. "Mature or Emerging? The Impact of Treatment-Related Internet Health Information Seeking on Patients’ Trust in Physicians," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-17, August.
    18. Ratika Sharma & Britta Wigginton & Carla Meurk & Pauline Ford & Coral E. Gartner, 2016. "Motivations and Limitations Associated with Vaping among People with Mental Illness: A Qualitative Analysis of Reddit Discussions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    19. Somayeh Esmaeilzadeh & Hasan Ashrafi-rizi & Leila Shahrzadi & Firozeh Mostafavi, 2018. "A survey on adolescent health information seeking behavior related to high-risk behaviors in a selected educational district in Isfahan," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(11), pages 1-14, November.
    20. Xinyi Lu & Runtong Zhang & Xiaomin Zhu, 2019. "An Empirical Study on Patients’ Acceptance of Physician-Patient Interaction in Online Health Communities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-10, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:67:y:2008:i:4:p:628-637. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.