As contraception funding declines and misinformation grows, one unlikely tool is making a difference: entertainment. From TikTok to telenovelas, creative storytelling is helping spread the truth.
There’s a lot of unreliable information circulating about birth control.
In one recent example, the Trump administration is mischaracterizing contraceptives as abortifacients and using this false information as a rationale for destroying nearly $10 million worth of contraceptives. (A reminder: Birth control does not cause abortion.) Purchased with U.S. government funding—before United Agency for International Development (USAID) was dismantled—and intended for distribution in low- and middle-income countries, the contraceptives are currently stored in a Belgian warehouse and slated for incineration. Offers from the United Nations and civil society groups to buy and distribute them have been refused.
Although these supplies haven’t been burned yet, and their fate is still in limbo, they symbolize grave threats to contraceptive supply and access. At the same time, they are no less of a real threat of misinformation. It’s an illustration of how reproductive health—including birth control and family planning services—is only partly a question of access. It’s also a very much a question of information, education and awareness.
Today, political attacks and misinformation about birth control are ramping up. Proliferation of false, negative information about “hormonal” birth control from TikTok videos and social media influencers correlates with a decline in young women’s use of birth control that can’t be explained by tightening access alone. It underscores the influence of misinformation on behavior.
This is happening at a dangerous time, when contraceptive access and global family planning funding are already constrained—with worse to come. When the U.S. defunded direct support for family planning services and UNFPA (the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency), it triggered a seismic shift. After staying stable for a decade, international family planning assistance is teetering on the edge of a cliff, as the U.K., Australia, Denmark and Sweden also pull back.
In 2023, nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide were unintended, and some 218 million women in developing countries did not want to become pregnant but were not using modern contraception.
Now experts estimate that number has risen to 257 million—and counting.
Along with less money, there is also less product in the pipeline. Contraceptive supply disruption is increasingly felt in developing countries, as both stock and time are running out. Absent a turnaround, one aid worker in Kenya said, “By the end of the year we’ll be looking at dire situations.”
Similarly, suspension of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funding started a countdown toward undoing decades of progress on HIV prevention, treatment and care—and time is running out, according to a recent report by Physicians for Human Rights.
But funding and access to contraceptives or anti-retroviral drugs to prevent HIV aren’t the only factors in health outcomes. There are also social determinants—like education or economic status, individual knowledge and attitudes, religious beliefs and behavioral choices. Stigma, unfounded fears about side effects, or resistant attitudes of male partners are often also barriers to contraceptive use.
Such factors can be ameliorated. We know from decades of experience in many countries that long-form, character-driven educational radio and TV programming, such as telenovelas, are a low-cost transformative way at scale to encourage young people to use contraception or get tested for HIV. Those who watch or listen to them often report they are three times more likely to use contraception than those who don’t.
One U.S. example is the Hulu teen drama series East Los High—the first to feature an all-Latino cast. My organization helped create the show with community health workers, social scientists and civil society groups to get salutary and fact-based messages about sex and reproductive health across to teens.
During the first season, EastLosHigh.com drove 22 percent of traffic to Planned Parenthood’s The Check mobile app, which helps users consider whether to get tested for sexually transmitted infections.
A similar approach could work in short-form digital media, which has truly vast potential audiences. The ReelShort micro drama series Breaking the Ice, with episodes about two minutes long, has teenage characters navigating romance and pregnancy—and 273 million hits.
If we don’t look at these opportunities, others will. A hundred TikTok videos with inaccurate information about birth control collectively have nearly 5 billion views. They were the subject of a recent peer-reviewed study, which found they conveyed misleading, inaccurate or false information—for example, on the supposed harms of hormonal birth control, and 90 percent of them were made by “influencers” who aren’t licensed medical professionals.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We know young people respond to character-driven dramas. Why couldn’t TikTok and other short-form digital media disseminate entertaining, accurate information and model healthy behaviors? Why couldn’t they base their storylines on facts and research, and still be entertaining?
At a time when international funding for and access to family planning products and services is disrupted, digital entertainment education could offer a way forward. It costs very little, especially relative to its massive potential impact.
Imagine what would happen if 100 short narrative entertaining videos with accurate, fact based information were seen by billions of young people. Imagine their inclination to use contraception or to get tested for STIs, tripling. Imagine them demanding their governments use domestic resources to fund family planning.
Better reproductive health outcomes require both things: open access to family planning products and services, and open communication of factual information. While advocates fight to secure services and products against the tide of declining aid, we shouldn’t forget the battle for accurate information and education.
Editor’s note: The website EastLosHigh.com referenced in this story is no longer active. It previously hosted companion content for the Hulu series East Los High.
