Study Design
We conducted individual interviews and focus groups with 10–15 year-old boys and girls (36 unique participants) at a neighborhood-based nonprofit organization serving youth from low-resource neighborhoods in New Haven, CT. The purpose of these discussions was to inform the development of an interactive videogame focused on behavior change to reduce risk and promote HIV prevention in young minority adolescents. Our goal was to design an effective and tailored intervention that resonated with our targeted audience.
What We Found
Three recurrent themes lent themselves to translation into a videogame-based intervention. Adolescents reported protective factors and facilitators to engaging in risk behaviors, including (1) their personal ability to balance the tension between individuation and group membership, (2) the presence of stable mentor figures in their life, and (3) the neighborhood in which they live. We used these themes to inform the design of our videogame intervention with the goal that these methods may increase the intervention’s efficacy at promoting HIV prevention by making them more tailored and relevant to a specific population. Our qualitative study provides a practical understanding of how important elements identified by minority youth regarding negotiating around risk behaviors can be integrated into a videogame intervention. These findings offer valuable insights to researchers whose goal is to design effective and tailored interventions to affect behavior change.