SOS (Stories of Strength): Digital Storytelling for HIV Prevention (2026-2027)

Background

Despite major advances in HIV prevention and treatment, wide disparities persist across the United States, particularly in the South. Black communities continue to experience disproportionately high rates of HIV, especially among cisgender women and youth. Many individuals face barriers such as limited access to testing, prevention tools like PrEP, consistent medical care and culturally responsive support services. Stigma and fear of rejection also discourage people from seeking help or discussing HIV openly.

Storytelling has long played a vital role in Black communities, preserving history, fostering resilience and inspiring collective action. Personal narratives can counter misinformation, challenge stigma and encourage engagement in HIV prevention and care. Digital platforms now make it possible for these stories to reach broad audiences and create space for dialogue and healing.

Stories of Strength (SOS) builds on this tradition by elevating authentic narratives from those affected by or engaged in HIV prevention and care. Few studies have explored how user-generated digital storytelling can drive awareness, shift attitudes or strengthen prevention efforts within Black communities. This project aims to address that gap and contribute new insights into culturally grounded health communication.

Project Description

This project team will develop and pilot a digital storytelling campaign that centers the lived experiences of Black community members affected by HIV. Students will work with storytellers to co-create short audio or video narratives and will study how these stories spark dialogue, reduce stigma and support HIV-related awareness when disseminated through social media.

The work will unfold across four phases:

Qualitative exploration: Students will conduct a literature review on digital storytelling and health communication, then interview about 10 individuals with lived experience of HIV prevention, care or treatment. Interviews will explore motivations for sharing stories and ideas for impactful narrative themes.

Story development and co-creation: Students will collaborate with storytellers to produce short (under three minutes) audio or video narratives. A community consultant will provide cultural guidance, and graduate students will support ethical storytelling, narrative framing and media production. All stories will highlight themes such as prevention, care engagement, treatment, disclosure and stigma reduction.

Pilot dissemination and content analysis: The team will release the completed stories through a structured social media campaign on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and X. Students will track audience engagement and conduct qualitative content analysis of comments and interactions to understand how viewers respond to the stories.

Evaluation and dissemination: Findings will be synthesized into a webinar on digital storytelling as a public health tool. Students will also prepare publications, conference abstracts and materials for community dissemination.

Through this work, the team will build experience in qualitative research, digital storytelling, ethical health communication and culturally grounded community engagement.

Anticipated Outputs

• 8-10 co-created digital stories
• Peer-reviewed publications
• Conference abstracts and presentations
• Community-facing dissemination materials
• Webinar on digital storytelling for HIV prevention
• Data to support future research

Student Opportunities

Ideally, this project team will include 3 graduate students and 2 undergraduate students. Graduate students may come from nursing, public health, communications, anthropology, documentary studies or social work. Undergraduates may come from public health, premedical tracks, cinematic arts, African and African American studies, gender and sexuality studies or related areas.

All team members should demonstrate a commitment to health equity and cultural responsiveness. Experience in qualitative research, storytelling, social media strategy or digital media production is beneficial but not required.

Students will participate in every stage of the project, including literature review, recruitment and interviewing, transcription and data coding, story creation, campaign planning, social media engagement tracking and content analysis. Students will also help organize workshops and community engagement activities. Graduate students will have additional opportunities to mentor undergraduates, lead subgroups, facilitate workshops and support advanced analysis.

Team meetings will occur weekly, with subgroups forming as needed (such as research, media production and social media analytics teams). A graduate student may serve as project manager, coordinating schedules, timelines and communication.

An optional summer component will include training, participant recruitment, literature review and interview preparation.

In Fall 2026, this team will meet on Tuesdays from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.