Kikut-Stein, Ava, Givan, Kathleen, Branson, Paulette, Fishman, Jeffrey, Bailey, Kavon, Paolicelli, Michelle, Crockett, Toni, Morris, Tamera, Adesipo, Ajibola, Allen, Dayana, Blanco-Liz, Ashley, Bonds, Leticia-Faith, Brooks, Ny’zera, Carriker, Malaysia, Francis, Katherine, Jean Pierre, Micah, Konner, Holly, Myers, Ryen, Newkirk, Naiim, and Poole, Milan
Youth offer valuable insight on health communication needs and solutions in their communities. We propose youth participatory action communication research (YPACR) as a model for health campaign development that engages youth perspectives in applying systematic theory-informed communication research to addressing youth-identified health priorities. YPACR informed a series of paid high school internship programs in West Philadelphia, in which youth interns identified mental health help-seeking communication as a need among peers. In Phase 1, guided by the reasoned action approach and Hornik & Woolf method, youth interns conducted a survey measuring behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, and control beliefs associated with mental health help-seeking, as well as trusted sources of mental health information, among local high school students. Survey results suggested control (self-efficacy) was an important message target and peers were trusted mental health information sources. In Phase 2, youth interns developed TikTok-style messages focused on strengthening control beliefs and promoting a youth-selected mental health support resource. Youth interns distributed an online survey experiment to test whether youth-created messages shown alongside resource information increased help-seeking self-efficacy compared to an information-only control. The YPACR framework contributed to youth-relevant campaign goals, study measurements, recruitment approaches, data interpretation, and message design. We discuss the benefits and challenges of this youth-driven health campaign development model and recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]