| From: |
"Gabriel, ADEYEMO" [ profile ] |
| Subject: |
Facebook: The next tool in fighting STDs
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| Sent: |
Apr 10th, 2012 - 06:35:32 |
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SOURCE:* Salon*
AUTHOR: Tracy Clark-Flory
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/01/facebook_the_next_tool_in_fighting_stds/singleton/
Hey colleague!
How was your weekend/Holiday? I have been away for some time now on an
advocacy field trip as regards condom programming for young people in
Nigeria. Reports shall be sent out soonest.
Leading researchers are looking at how Facebook and other social networking
sites can play a role in STD prevention. At a recent conference, Peter
Leone of the University of North Carolina's Center for Infectious Diseases
discussed how a person's circle of friends and sex partners can be a strong
predictor of STD risk.
He cited an example from a syphilis outbreak in North Carolina: "When we
looked at the networks we could connect many of the cases to sexual
encounters, and when we asked who they hung out with, who they knew, we
could connect 80 percent of the cases. People think that you have to be
directly connected to someone, and I think of it as a population-level
effect," said Leone. "It would be no different from someone who goes to a
picnic and gets food poisoning.
We're concerned about everyone that was at that picnic." According to Sean
Young, a Division of Infectious Disease researcher at the University of
California (UC)-Los Angeles, social networking sites are currently most
useful as information portals and for generating conversations about risk
and testing. This normalization and destigmatizing is exactly the aim of
the "Get Yourself Tested" campaign, which calls on young people to get
tested and check in on Foursquare while at their local clinic. "There is
good evidence that we're influenced by seeing what our friends are doing,"
said James Fowler, professor of medical genetics at UC-San Diego and author
of "Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They
Shape Our Lives." But it takes "real, deep close social contact for people
to change their behavior."
This is going to be a very huge step and breakthrough towards informing our
peers on STIs related infections. Thanks for reading through
--
Many Thanks
Yours' in Prevention Science
Gabriel, ADEYEMO
Regional Focal Point - West Africa
Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AID (GYCA), a program of the Public Health
Institute
+234-80-6798-7317 | gabriel (at) gyca.org
www.gyca.org | www.phi.org
GYCA is a youth-led global network of over 6,500 young leaders and adult
allies working on youth and HIV/AIDS in 173 countries world-wide. GYCA's
mission is to empower young leaders with the skills, knowledge, resources
and opportunities they need to scale up HIV/AIDS interventions amongst
their peers.
*My United Nations Pledge 2011-2012: "To lend my wit and my strength to the
AIDS Response guiding global youth towards one goal: Zero HIV: Zero AIDS
Related Deaths, Zero New Infections, Zero Stigma"*
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