INFLUENCE OF INTERPERSONAL AND MASS-MEDIATED INTERVENTIONS ON INJECTION-DRUG AND CRACK USERS - DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS AND HIV RISK BEHAVIORS

Evaluation research of public health media campaigns to influence beha vior change often bemoans the lack of relevance to target audience and an absence of integrated interpersonal and mass-mediated communicatio n channels. The assumption that illegal drug users are disconnected fr om mass-mediated communication may account for this absence of media i nterventions. The authors used cross-tabulation, chi-square, and regre ssion analyses to demonstrate that many out-of-treatment drug users in an HIV-prevention research project are media consumers and that parti cipants who recalled seeing or hearing media interventions reported gr eater levels of positive behavior change than participants who did not recall such messages. Results suggest coordination of human and mass- mediated public health messages relevant to this population to facilit ate behavior changes.