RAISING AWARENESS, CHANGING BEHAVIOR: Early HIV/AIDS posters, including “I have AIDS / Please hug me” designed by the California-based Center for Attitudinal Healing in 1987 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “You Won’t Get AIDS in a Restaurant” from the early 1990s, focused on educating the public about how the disease was transmitted. Attention subsequently shifted to encouraging behavioral changes, especially condom use. The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s 1988 message about the invention of condoms in 1850 appealed to a general audience, while Australia’s comic-like Condoman character from the early 1990s specifically targeted young Aboriginal men.WELLCOME LIBRARY, LONDON
In 1985, 95 percent of Americans had heard of AIDS, and 47 percent admitted they would prefer to avoid HIV-positive people, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report. The following year, to promote the scientific knowledge detailed in the Surgeon General’s new report on the disease, the American Red Cross and the Ad Council began the first of many public-education campaigns, followed by the US government’s America Responds to AIDS effort, which lasted from 1987 until 1996.
Originally appearing in print ads, on billboards, and on public transportation, the posters—humble messengers of the multimedia campaign—serve today as reminders of how public understanding of the disease progressed. The earliest images fought misinformation about disease transmission. Later, the focus shifted from raising awareness to changing risky behavior ...
