East Los High: Transmedia edutainment to promote the sexual and reproductive health of young Latina/o Americans

Abstract

Latina/o Americans are at high risk for sexually transmitted infections and teen pregnancies. Needed urgently are innovative health promotion approaches that are engaging and culturally sensitive. East Los High, a transmedia edutainment program, was purposefully designed to embed educational messages in entertainment narratives across several digital platforms to promote sexual and reproductive health among Young Latina/o Americans. By employing analytics tracking, a viewer survey, and a lab experiment, we found that East Los High had a wide audience reach, strong audience engagement and, in general, a positive cognitive, emotional, and social impact on sexual and reproductive health communication and education. Culturally-sensitive transmedia edutainment programs represent a promising health promotion strategy for minority populations and warrant further investigation and validation.