AEGiS-BAYW: AIDS ads targeting API community air in Boston

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

AIDS ads targeting API community air in Boston

Bay Windows - May 26, 2005
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com.

Massachusetts Asian and Pacific Islanders (MAP) for Health launched the first television ads in Boston aimed at educating the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community on HIV and AIDS. At a May 19 press conference to premiere the ads Jacob Smith Yang, MAP for Health's executive director, said the ads were developed in conjunction with five other health centers from around the country. Yang said stigma around AIDS in the API community has made it difficult to reach people living with HIV or at risk for infection with information and services. The two ads, aimed at a general audience, urge the API community to show tolerance and compassion for people living with HIV.

"Stigma is such an important barrier," said Yang. "It really became important that we need to do some work on that end."

One of the ads features a man confessing that he is HIV positive to his brother, and his brother assures him that his family will support him. In the other, two women complain about their children's decisions to live nontraditional lives, but one of the women tells the other that her love for her son overcame her initial shame when he revealed he was HIV positive.

The ads will air locally on WHDH, the Discovery Channel, MTV, Lifetime, and the USA Network. The launch of the ads coincided with the first National Asian and Pacific Islander (API) HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, which was recognized by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

James Murphy, director of HIV/AIDS surveillance at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health state laboratory, spoke at the press conference about the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the API community in the Bay State. While DPH has tracked only 219 HIV/AIDS cases in the API community over the course of the epidemic, a relatively small number, Murphy said HIV is a major health issue in the community. While the number of AIDS diagnoses has decreased for every other racial and ethnic group since the early '90s, AIDS cases in the API community only began to decrease in 2001. Murphy said this suggests many in the API community are unaware they are infected with HIV until they are diagnosed with AIDS.

Ethan Jacobs is a staff writer at Bay Windows. His e-mail address is ejacobs@baywindows.com.
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