There is a need for health communication research among African Americans in order to develop effective prevention messages that connect with their everyday realities and that speak to them with relevance. In an effort to address this need the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) contracted RTI to complete four tasks: (1) Conduct a comprehensive literature review to inform the development of effective prevention messages for African American audiences; (2) Develop a screening instrument, a moderator guide, and institutional review board (IRB) protocols for CDC and RTI; (3) Conduct four rounds of exploratory research, which included exploring topics such as stigma, social determinants of health, and message bundling, facilitating focus groups with African American men and women across five locations in the United States, hosting group discussions with professionals from health, legal, media, business, and law enforcement, and pretesting messages with a small sample of the target audience prior to implementing them in the pilot project; and (4) Develop a pilot project to test the efficacy of the recommended intervention developed in Task 3 within one African American community located in a High Morbidity Area (HMA).