Delta Teen eHealth Focus Group Project: Formative research to enhance teen pregnancy prevention in Mississippi among rural and African American youth through new media/internet technology

African American (AA) youth—particularly in rural/resource-poor settings—are disproportionately at risk for negative health outcomes (e.g., alcohol/drug dependency, STIs, teen pregnancy) associated with high risk behaviors (HRBs) such as alcohol/drug use, early sexual debut, and unprotected sex. Mississippi—one of the most rural states in the US—ranks 1st in teen births, chlamydia, and gonorrhea and 8th in syphilis, with youth/young adults most severely impacted. Sixty-one percent of Mississippi high school students are sexually active (vs. 48% nationwide) and 1 in 8 have had sex before age 13 (vs. 1 in 16 nationwide). Mississippi's rural AA youth are particularly impacted by negative health outcomes associated with HRBs. For example, the teen birth rate in one rural county is nearly 5 times higher for AA youth versus white youth (120 vs. 25 per 1,000, respectively). Such findings indicate a need for culturally-tailored HRB prevention interventions targeting rural and AA youth. One promising way to reach such youth is through interventions delivered via new media (i.e., emerging electronic technology/social media)—given the immense popularity of texting, sexting, social networking, and internet use among all US youth. However, there is little research on how rural AA youth use new media to meet their HRB prevention and sexual/reproductive health education needs. To address this gap, we collected formative data to identify how rural AA youth use new media in their everyday lives, with a focus on how they electronically access health information related to STIs, teen pregnancy, and other important sexual/reproductive health issues.