Entertainment-education and HIV/AIDS prevention: A field experiment in Tanzania

Entertainment-education is the process of designing and implementing an ent ertainment program to increase audience members' knowledge about a social i ssue, create more favorable attitudes, and change their overt behaviors reg arding the social issue. The results of a field experiment in Tanzania to m easure the effects of a long-running entertainment-education radio soap ope ra, Twende na Wakati (Let's Go with the Times), on knowledge, attitudes, an d adoption of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) prevention behaviors are presented. Multiple independent m easures of effects and the experimental design of this study confer strong internal and external validity regarding the results of this investigation. The effects of the radio program in Tanzania include (1) a reduction in th e number of sexual partners by both men and women, and (2) increased condom adoption. The radio soap opera influenced these behavioral variables throu gh certain intervening variables, including (I) self-perception of risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, (2) self-efficacy with respect to preventing HIV/AIDS , (3) interpersonal communication about HIV/AIDS, and (4) identification wi th, and role modeling of; the primary characters in the radio soap opera.