SUMMARY
HIV-related service delivery gaps remain in many regions of the world, and HIV-related stigma constitutes
a major barrier to filling them. Latin America is no exception. In addition to high levels of stigma toward
and among PLWH, there is pervasive stigma against the key populations in which HIV is concentrated:
young men who have sex with men (MSM) and young transgender women (TGW). Mitigating HIV-related
stigma as well as other stigmas that intersect with HIV-related stigma will be critical to meeting testing and
treatment targets, and improving health outcomes in Latin America.
We will evaluate the feasibility of a social marketing public health strategy for reducing HIV-related stigma,
and associated intersectional stigma, among young people in an urban Latin American setting. We will
conduct focus groups with key stake holders to learn which messages they perceive to be most important
for stigma reduction, which types of intersectional stigma should be considered and what they would like
to see changed as a result of the intervention. Then, drawing on theory-based approaches for stigma
reduction, information dissemination, and health communication, we will create a series of locally tailored
multimedia content (e.g., short videos, music videos, and memes). To evaluate potential efficacy we will
conduct a randomized online social marketing study in which we assign users to view our HIV-related
content or a control product and measure changes in stigmatizing opinions related to HIV and
intersectional stigmas. Finally, we will recruit societal influencers to transmit our content through their
social media networks and examine whether young people exposed to the social media content
experience a greater reduction in perceived stigma relative to controls who are not exposed to the
intervention.
