NIAID Announces New Campaign To Raise Awareness
of Preventive HIV Vaccine Research
Young Americans are Challenged to “Be The Generation” that Ends
the AIDS Epidemic
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),
one of the National Institutes of Health, today announced the launch
of the “Be The Generation” public awareness campaign, challenging
young Americans to be the generation that ends AIDS through the
discovery of a safe and effective preventive HIV vaccine.
Using multi-generational pairs of individuals, the awareness ads
compare major social issues such as civil rights with the search
to end the AIDS epidemic. The campaign challenges this generation
to become involved in changing the world as the generations before
them did.
“We are at an important point on the road to the development of
a preventive HIV vaccine,” says Margaret Johnston, Ph.D., Director
of NIAID’s Vaccine Research Program. “We must make a concerted
effort now to overcome several obstacles, including a general lack
of knowledge about HIV vaccine research, in order to recruit diverse
populations into clinical trials that will determine whether vaccine
candidates in development might benefit this and future generations.”
The campaign will be launched with a television commercial airing
in 14 U.S. cities where HIV vaccine research is taking place (see
below). The ad, aimed at educating Americans about preventive HIV
vaccine research, will run for six weeks in these target markets
beginning in October. The ads also can be viewed on the affiliated
Web site, www.bethegeneration.org. The TV and Web outreach will
be supplemented by a community toolkit, and partnerships between
the campaign, community-based organizations and HIV vaccine research
institutions.
Research conducted over the past five years shows that public
awareness and understanding of HIV vaccine research is very low.
For instance, only 25 percent of Americans surveyed were aware
that HIV vaccines being tested cannot cause HIV infection. In addition,
misperceptions and fear related to clinical research and the use
of an HIV vaccine are widespread, particularly among African Americans,
the population most heavily affected by HIV/AIDS in the United
States. Left unchecked, these misperceptions can make trial recruitment
more difficult, delay clinical research and undermine education
efforts and eventual use of a preventive vaccine.
“Through this focused public education campaign, we want to engage
communities to help pave the way to a preventive HIV vaccine by
raising awareness, expanding understanding of HIV vaccine clinical
trials and, ultimately, increasing trial participation,” Dr. Johnston
says.
The “Be The Generation” campaign materials, which can be found
on the campaign’s Web site, include posters, brochures, detailed
fact sheets and mini fact sheets. The materials are tailored to
the four U.S. audiences most affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic:
African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, women, and men who have sex
with men. The 14 markets airing the spot are: Atlanta, Baltimore,
Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia,
Providence, Rochester, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis and Washington,
D.C.
News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are
available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov.
NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health.
NIAID supports basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose
and treat infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually
transmitted infections, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria and
illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports
research on basic immunology, transplantation and immune-related
disorders, including autoimmune diseases, asthma and allergies.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's
Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and
Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting
and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research,
and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both
common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and
its programs, visit www.nih.gov. |