A better way to prevent the spread of HIV

a post by Richard A. Crosby and Ralph J. Diclemente for the OUP blog


“Human Immunodeficiency Virus” by Typographyimages. CC0 via Pixabay.

HIV prevention is now focused on finding at least 90% of the existing cases, putting at least 90% of those people in HIV treatment, and keeping the virus from multiplying in the body among 90% of those people retained in care (known as durable viral suppression). Despite these admirable goals, known as the United Nations’ “90-90-90” programme, HIV transmission rates have not declined since 2011. “The power of prevention is not being realized”, said Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS, in 2016. “If there is resurgence in new HIV infections now, the epidemic will become impossible to control. The world needs to take urgent and immediate action to close the prevention gap.”

The Prevention Gap Report issued by UNAIDS in 2016 provided a sobering set of statistics. Only about 38% of people living with HIV experience enough treatment success to be classified as being virally suppressed, and the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as an HIV prevention strategy is not easily applied outside the confines of clinical trials. Current use of PrEPs is less than 5% of the 2020 goal.

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December article

Determining Factors for Cyberbullying Prevention Programmes

an article by Cristina Hennig Manzuoli and Liliana Cuesta Medina (Universidad de La Sabana, Chía, Colombia) published in International Education Studies Volume 10 Number 12 (2017)

Abstract

This study reports on the first stages of a larger project to develop an ICT-supported cyberbullying prevention programme that fosters development of children’s communication skills for the safe use of social media.

To establish baseline data on the incidence and growth of cyberbullying in Bogotá, Colombia, we applied a Revised School Violence Questionnaire (CUVE-R) to a population of 1355 fifth-grade pre-adolescents.

The results show that cyberbullying is at an early stage in the surveyed educational institutions, and we make specific recommendations on developing cyberbullying prevention programmes that foster effective communication and self-regulatory skills supported by multimodal strategies and ICT tools.

Full text (PDF 9pp)

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A serious game-based solution to prevent bullying

an article by Cátia Raminhos, Ana Paula Cláudio and Maria Beatriz Carmo (BioISI – Biosystems and Integrative Sciences Institute, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal) and Augusta Gaspar, Susana Carvalhosa and Maria de Jesus Candeias (Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Social, Lisboa, Portugal) published in International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications Volume 12 Issue 2 (2016)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a Serious Game with the main purpose of inducing attitude changes as a way to prevent bullying, in a target audience of young people between 10 and 12 years old.

Design/methodology/approach
The rationale for prevention is: first, to help victims of these aggressive episodes to acquire or improve competencies in avoiding or dealing with future real bullying situations; and second, to promote empathy toward the victims in bystanders. A back office application complements the game, providing substantial assistance to psychologists while using the game with patients in therapy or in research work.

Findings
Both components, the game and the back office, were evaluated with volunteers. The user study leads the authors to the conclusion that the current version of the game holds good potential in bullying prevention: the young people that played the game in a continuous time span, at the end of this testing process, have expressed improvements in their bullying prevention strategies. The back office application, a distinctive feature of the solution when compared to other similar bullying prevention solutions, was positively assessed by the psychologists who tested it.

Originality/value
The game deals with strong social features, such as number of friends and invitations to social events (e.g. a birthday party), to which young people give much importance. Additionally, it offers a variability of scenarios and consequences of actions, taking into account the user’s performance in the game. The main factors that makes the presented solution stand out in comparison with other similar bullying prevention solutions are mainly the following: It includes a back office application to assist therapists with data management features; the role of the player in the game can be chosen according to his own profile; it is possible to play even outside a therapy session (e.g. at home); and it is a portable solution.

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