Using narrative communication in a mass-produced youth magazine as an HIV prevention intervention

With young people at the epicentre of the HIV epidemic, we need to build upon and find ways of sustaining interventions that place youth at the centre of prevention. This article argues that narrative communication is one such strategy, provided it is part of a comprehensive HIV prevention plan. Narrative communication in the form of autobiographical and role model stories in loveLife’s youth magazine, UNCUT, provides an effective mechanism not only for disseminating young people’s experiences of the individual, social and cultural determinants driving the HIV epidemic in South Africa at scale, but also for young people to learn from their experiences through role modelling and identification so they can better negotiate these determinants in their own lives.