HEALTH PROMOTION CAMPAIGN IN UK
Health Promotion Campaign in the UK Focused on HIV Prevention
www.hivpreventionengland.org.uk/order-resources
Background
The summer campaign ‘It Starts with Me’ was initiated on 2018 18th June that emphasised on preventing the spread of HIV in England by enhancing awareness and advocating for various effective initiatives (Brown et al. 2018).
Objectives
The purpose of the campaign includes enhancing awareness and promotion of HIV testing, prevention through treatment, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and the utilisation of condoms (Waters et al. 2016). The programme supported 1000 local tests offered by local activation partners.
Policy and Theory
The campaign was implemented through vast user-testing and evidence-dependent procedure thus ensuring that it is liable and applicable for the purposed target audience including the black and transgender populations (Hickson, Reid, Hammond and Weatherburn 2016). HIV in England most affects these two communities. Videos, advertisements and posters were promoted via social media, print media, websites and dating apps. Resources for implementing the campaign were launched on 4th June 2018. The main contextual issue is in 2016, UK witnessed an 18% decrease in HIV diagnoses to 5164 from 6286 in 2015.
Overall Critique
Public Health England outlined that HIV testing creates an opportunity to decrease the number of undiagnosed as well as late diagnosed individuals. Getting HIV treatment earlier offers a quick detection of the viral load, therefore, reduce the time of infectivity prior diagnosis (Rodger et al. 2016). HIV PrEP is a useful complement to other prevention techniques such as condom use which is accessible in various ways in the UK.
Evaluation
The evaluation of the ‘It Starts with Me’ campaign proved it useful. As a result of the campaign, 98% of individuals received treatment, 92% were diagnosed and 97% attained PrEP (Bourne, Reid and Weatherburn 2014). It is recommended to implement combination prevention methods because they offer the most effective results. The strength of the campaign is at least 5000 individuals have been enrolled for the PrEP effectiveness trail since it began. The main weakness is insufficient usage of condoms among the black and transgender populations due to inadequate information and inaccessibility to various condom options (Hickson et al. 2016).
Reference List
Bourne, A., Reid, D. and Weatherburn, P., 2014. African Health & Sex Survey 2013–14:
Headline Findings. London: Sigma Research, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Brown, A.E., Nash, S., Connor, N., Kirwan, P.D., Ogaz, D., Croxford, S., De Angelis, D. and
Delpech, V.C., 2018. Towards elimination of HIV transmission, AIDS and HIV‐related deaths in the UK. HIV medicine, 19(8), pp.505-512.
Hickson, F., Reid, D., Hammond, G. and Weatherburn, P., 2016. State of play: findings from
the England Gay Men’s Sex Survey 2014: Sigma Research. London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Rodger, A.J., Cambiano, V., Bruun, T., Vernazza, P., Collins, S., Van Lunzen, J., Corbelli,
G.M., Estrada, V., Geretti, A.M., Beloukas, A. and Asboe, D., 2016. Sexual activity without condoms and risk of HIV transmission in serodifferent couples when the HIV-positive partner is using suppressive antiretroviral therapy. Jama, 316(2), pp.171-181.
Waters, L., Ahmed, N., Angus, B., Boffito, M., Bower, M., Churchill, D., Dunn, D.,
Edwards, S., Emerson, C., Fidler, S. and Fisher, M., 2016. BHIVA guidelines for the treatment of HIV-1-positive adults with antiretroviral therapy 2015 (2016 interim update). BHIVA) BHA, ed. London, UK: BHIVA.