The Charlie Sheen effect on HIV testing
In a new, follow-up study published in the journal Prevention Science , Ayers and colleagues found that not only did Sheen's disclosure lead people to seek information about HIV, it also corresponded with record levels of at-home rapid HIV testing sales. The team collected data on weekly sales of OraQuick, the only rapid in-home HIV test kit available in the United States, to investigate whether Internet queries (based on Google Trends data on searches with "test," "tests," or "testing" and "HIV") could be correlated with any uptick in HIV testing. "Our strategy allowed us to provide a real-world estimation of the 'Charlie Sheen effect' on HIV prevention and contrast that effect with our past formative assessment using Internet searches," said study coauthor Eric Leas, a research associate in the SDSU-UCSD joint doctoral program in public health. The week of Sheen's disclosure coincided with a near doubling in O...