Creating avatar videos to address health disparities: Using social networks to disseminate e-health and surveys for data collection with at risk populations

This presentation benefits from access to an internet connection and the state of the art technology in the theatre, in order to introduce participants to the work of a research group at an urban university creating avatar videos to address health disparities. The research group also uses social networks to disseminate e-health and surveys for data collection with at risk populations. The research group has specialized in pioneering online research that involves both collecting data from subjects online, and providing online e-health--as health promotion and disease prevention. The e-health is carefully tailored to be culturally appropriate so that it engages and entertains the subjects who take our original surveys and watch our avatar videso; in essence, we create “e-health edutainment” to reduce and eliminate health disparities. The presentation covers the use of programs to create avatar videos based on scripts professionally written to disseminate e-health that is carefully tailored for at-risk populations so individuals engage in behavior change conducive to reducing and eliminating health disparities. Further, the presentation provides three examples of our work using series of brief (less than 2 minutes) avatar videos tailored for the populations of: 1) African American women who need to use one of nine methods for preventing unplanned pregnancies in order to reduce rates of infant mortality; 2) African American mothers and children who need to learn to eat more fruits and vegetables by following My Plate and engaging in more physical activity to reduce rates of obesity; and, 3) men who have sex with men (MSM) who need to learn to refuse high risk unprotected sex and to pursue testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Participants will learn how to use online data collection/survey programs so that they include a pre-avatar viewing survey component, a link to a series of brief (less than 2 minutes) avatar videos that subjects watch, and a post-avatar viewing survey component for assessing the impact of watching the videos. There will also be a brief overview of findings that suggest the potential of culturally appropriate avatar videos to serve as brief online interventions that result in intentions to engage in behavior change conducive to reducing and eliminating health disparities. Finally, the websites and avatar videos may gain popularity on YouTube, be disseminated further as m-health, and serve as an enduring contribution to public health and the reduction and elimination of health disparities.