Entertainment-education radio serial drama and outcomes related to HIV testing in Botswana.

Makgabaneng is an entertainment-education radio serial drama written and produced in Botswana to promote prevention of HIV. This effort is part of the national response to HIV/AIDS. Broadcast of the serial drama began in August 2001, and two new 15-minute episodes air each week.

Radio role models for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and HIV testing among pregnant women in Botswana.

Although Botswana supports a program for the prevention of mother-to-child-transmission of HIV (PMTCT), many women initially did not take advantage of the program. Using data from a 2003 survey of 504 pregnant and post-partum women, we assessed associations between exposure to a long-running radio serial drama that encourages use of the PMTCT program and HIV testing during pregnancy. Controlling for demographic, pregnancy and other variables, women who spontaneously named a PMTCT character in the serial drama as their favorite character were nearly twice as likely to test for HIV during pregnancy as those who did not.

Applying behavioral science to behavior change communication: the pathways to change tools.

Entertainment-education (EE) is a popular vehicle for behavior change communication (BCC) in many areas of public health, especially in the developing world where soap operas and other serial drama formats play a central role in encouraging people to avoid risky behavior. Yet BCC/EE developers have been largely unable to integrate behavioral theory and research systematically into storylines and scripts, depending instead on external, technical oversight of what should be an essentially local, creative process. This article describes how the Modeling and Reinforcement to Combat HIV/AIDS project at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has developed a set of tools through which creative writers can exercise greater control over the behavioral content of their stories.

"One day I might find myself HIV-positive like her": audience involvement and identification with role models in an entertainment-education radio drama in Botswana.

Entertainment-education programs promote health and development goals throughout the world. This study looks specifically at a radio serial drama designed to provide behavioral role models for HIV prevention and reproductive health in Botswana as part of the behavior-change strategy, Modeling and Reinforcement to Combat HIV/AIDS (MARCH). The purpose of this qualitative study is to elucidate regular listeners' involvement and identification with three different types of fictional characters in the drama.