Taking PrEP To The Most In Need!

This article is provided for you to pick up lessons. It is titled: Is the “PrEP4Love” Campaign Reaching Those Who Need It Most?

The Chicago-based HIV-prevention effort garnered about 41 million views in its first four months alone. And that’s not all says Caroline Tien.

The social marketing campaign “PrEP4Love” successfully raised awareness of Truvada as PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) as an HIV-prevention tactic, according to the results of a recent study conducted by the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination (CCHE), reports the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.

Specifically, in the campaign’s first four months, the “PrEP4Love” ads garnered nearly 41 million unique views across social media platforms and 25,000 click-throughs.

PrEP - which is approved for adults and adolescents- involves taking one pill a day and includes regular screenings for #HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Medical monitoring and adherence support is also part of the PrEP mix. When the program is followed consistently and correctly, PrEP is up to 99% effective at preventing HIV. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾. You can take PrEP with gender-affirming hormones. 💋💋💋 😍

This discovery is especially promising given that Black and same-sex-loving communities in Chicago (and the United States in general) are disproportionately affected by the epidemic. In 2017, for example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that Black people accounted for 13% of the U.S. population but 43% of all new HIV diagnoses.

In light of these findings, the study concluded that “grassroots-organized social movements promoting health equity can successfully sidestep the increasing power of commercial and market interests in shaping public health interventions.”

The citywide campaign was launched in 2016 by the Chicago PrEP Working Group (now the Illinois PrEP Working Group). “PrEP4Love” was advertised primarily on trains and buses, via digital campaigns and at pop-up events. The ads featured “intimate photos of individuals from Chicago communities that are especially vulnerable to HIV, particularly young, Black, gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men, transgender women of color and Black heterosexual women.”  

When taken daily as prescribed, PrEP, reduces the risk of contracting HIV by 99% or more among men who have sex with men and 90% or more among women. (The risk reduction for women may very well be greater than 90%, but currently available research is insufficient to refine the estimate.) PrEP also reduces the risk of contracting HIV via use of contaminated needles by more than 70%.

The success of PrEP4Love could potentially foreshadow an increase in the use of sex-positive, identity-affirming marketing campaigns as messaging tools in the public health sphere.