A campaign the workers helped design raised knowledge and confidence — but not their sense of personal risk

If migrant workers help design an HIV risk communication campaign themselves rather than simply receiving it, does that actually change their knowledge, confidence, perceived risk, and preventive behaviour?

The campaign was designed from two focus groups totalling 16 workers at a factory in Samut Sakhon, together with in-depth interviews with ten government and NGO officers responsible for HIV prevention. Health volunteers recruited from among the workers themselves then delivered it to 400 workers over two weeks, starting on International Condom Day in 2017. The campaign combined events, workshops and training, a media campaign, and both quantitative and qualitative evaluation.

• Knowledge scores rose significantly.
• Stages of change for condom use and for HIV testing both advanced significantly.
• Self-efficacy, and perceived benefits and barriers to prevention, changed significantly.
• Perceived personal risk of contracting HIV, however, did not change significantly (alpha 0.05).

What did not move matters as much as what did. The campaign made people more knowledgeable and more confident they could protect themselves without first making them feel personally at risk — which means health campaigns can change behaviour without relying on fear. The researchers attribute the campaign's effect to the workers' own participation in designing it.