Fear-Based Public Health Campaigns for HIV/AIDS Prevention: Efficacy and Ethics

[Jim Allen]

Personally I think fear based campaigns fail long term educational vaule this, next to a few other shortcomings.

Anyhow the below link to the full writeup was an interesting read.

Fear-Based Public Health Campaigns for HIV/AIDS Prevention: Efficacy and Ethics

In full: https://www.infectiousdiseaseadvisor.com/hivaids-advisor/public-head-campaigns-for-hiv-infection-prevention/article/792517/

Summary

Social determinants of health—conditions in the places where people live, learn, work, and play—affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes. Even the strongest supporters of emotionally charged campaigns admit that fear alone isn't enough to drive behavior change.1

Whether scare tactics are used in public health campaigns and, perhaps more importantly, how such efforts will be received by at-risk populations, depends on the political and social climate of those communities. Both approaches have been shown to move the needle in increasing awareness about the risks of contracting HIV.

[MarkintheDark]

Thanks for the article.  Reading it, I was pretty stunned the authors of one study, in part, concluded, "Further, the authors wrote that there were few circumstances where fear tactics were not effective and there were no identifiable circumstances under which they backfired and led to undesirable outcomes such as stigma." (https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304516)  Aside from the head-in-the-sand conclusions, I find it hard to believe any knowledgeable person could give much weight to title such as, "The Two Faces of Fear: A History of Hard-Hitting Public Health Campaigns Against Tobacco and AIDS."  This sounds like apples-and-oranges propaganda that would have been written by Joseph Goebbels, imo.

Obviously, Jim, we on POZ see every day the almost-unimaginable ignorance you personally have to repeatedly counter with fact.  Many of these people are nevertheless so consumed with fear and paranoia - some I imagine fueled by these campaigns - even facts sometimes doesn't register. SMH.

The stigma from within and without, yes, often because of these fear campaigns, seems to me to do more harm than good.  IF someone contracts HIV, though unfortunate, it's now fully treatable.  The damage is that stigma keeps some from seeking treatment and/or marginalizes those who are already in marginalized communities.

If someone could cite a reference, I'd be curious to know what kind of backlash fear campaigns may eventually face.  In political and religious circles the examples are probably too numerous to mention.  If one were to cast a wide net, then let's use good old history as a gauge.  In my own community, over the years I've seen it develop from the "Condom Nazis" moniker to barebacking, essentially giving the collective finger to fear-mongers.  (Perhaps not unlike what some of us felt towards the nuns who'd told the boys they'd grow hair on their palms if they...well, you know).

[Jim Allen]

  lol, sorry had to laugh.

So yeah I had to read the article twice thisthisas morning as I lost my temper with it the first time.

As said interesting reading, agreed totally shocking poor conclusions abd, comparisons. This however is the kind of stuff people will bring up when future campaigns are developed, so best be aware of it.