No more HIV scare campaigns - ACON

Who could forget the grim reaper AIDS add here in Australia in 1987:




It was all about scare scare scare..... but it worked back then. Indeed Australia grabbed the bull by the horns so to speak, started talking about sex and needle use on national TV, and people woke up to the fact that you could die just from having sex. In that sense the add was ground breaking, educating people about the dangers of unprotected sex, and although there were a lot of deaths in the gay community the straight world remained relatively unscathed. This I would consider is the result of the responsibility of the gay community with HIV infections here who bore the brunt of the disease.

Unfortunately many of us know that even today in the straight world, that add is about the sum total of their entire knowledge of HIV. Although it made people aware of the dangers, it was a huge stigmatising of the disease and feed the almost hysteria at the mention of the word AIDS. I can't imagine what it must have been like getting an HIV+ diagnosis back then in such an environment. 

ACON has decided that scare tactic campaigns like that just don't work anymore.

“Credibility of message is crucial. While some people continue experience significant health and hardship issues related to being positive, the reality is that experience for people living with HIV now is much more diverse. An HIV diagnosis is no longer a death sentence. A fear based campaign based on what it is like to live with HIV now is unlikely to promote the kind of change we need in order to promote condom use or encourage testing.” 

Fear based campaigns have been broadly discredited as effective health promotion strategy across a number of disease-types and health issues, Parkhill suggests. “For example, concern around Australia’s binge drinking culture has not abated over the past decade despite our airwaves, bus shelters and print media featuring all manner of messaging featuring road fatalities, relationship breakdowns and rather undignified person-in-gutter-vomiting imagery.” 

Over 25,700 people are now living with diagnosed HIV infection in Australia. Parkhill points out that fear campaigns about HIV could drive them ‘underground’ – making them less likely to seek advice or assistance if they require it. It also decreases the likelihood someone will go to get an HIV test. 

“And of course, fear based HIV campaigns always run the significant risk of creating stigma and discrimination toward of people with HIV and promoting stigma and discrimination, which can result in serious negative health and legal implications.” more

This is of course their latest effort, which has been going for a bit now. I thought it was quite clever in that condoms were a big part of the message.

It's rather a balancing act isn't it. How to promote sexual health without stigmatising HIV.