Africa: Risk Perception Campaign Takes Regional Approach

WASHINGTON, DC, Sept. 27, 2004 — PSI's AIDSMark Project is rolling out a major campaign aiming to increase risk perception across much of Africa. Eleven countries in East and Southern Africa (ESA) have already launched the Trusted Partner campaign and another eleven countries in West and Central Africa (WCA) have adapted the campaign and will be launching it in the last few months of 2004.

This regional behavior change communication (BCC) initiative takes advantage of the fact that countries in the same region often face similar barriers to AIDS prevention, and has developed high-quality, research-based campaigns that address the needs of multiple countries at once.

AIDSMark provides technical support in research and marketing to PSI country programs implementing BCC programs. Centralized project management and research efforts minimize duplication and local staff time and programs gain access to high-quality creative resources and production at a fraction of what it would cost to develop and implement the campaign in each country separately.

The Trusted Partner campaign was produced in 11 ESA countries, and when AIDSMark took the campaign to the WCA region, 11 more countries expressed interest. The replication of the campaign into WCA countries has cost almost 75% less than it did for countries in ESA. Instead of developing a new creative strategy for the WCA campaigns, AIDSMark paid a minimal amount to have the material — four TV spots, four radio spots and four print — translated into French.

Building on research conducted previously in Kenya, the AIDSMark research team collaborated with field offices in Eritrea, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe in 2001 to conduct a regional study on trust in sexual relationships and how it affects young people's sexual decision-making. A total of 33 focus groups with youth aged 15-24 were conducted.

The research team found that youth have difficulty personalizing their risk for infection, and often use ineffective criteria to evaluate their risk within trusted relationships. As a result of using such criteria to evaluate a partners' trustworthiness, a sense of trust weakens their risk perception for STIs/HIV and, as a result, places them at increased risk for infection.

Study results were used to support the development of the creative brief. An advertising agency in Nairobi was hired to develop the creative materials and coordinate production of the multimedia campaign.

Currently, 11 ESA countries have launched the entire campaign (television, radio and print materials): Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi and Swaziland. Each country had the opportunity to make country-specific modifications to the scripts, to pre-test materials and to share information with their local donors.

In order to adapt the materials to WCA countries, the campaign was translated into French and focus groups held in each country to verify the campaign's relevance and to identify necessary script changes. As with the ESA campaign, country-specific modifications such as language, tag lines and logos were made. The following WCA countries are launching in late 2004: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Cote D'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Togo.

— Sarah Wyss, AIDSMark, PSI/Washington.

• Archives

Communication material from AIDSMark's regional Trusted Partner campaign, like this poster in Cameroon, motivates increased risk perception. This poster shows that healthy-looking, hard-working, happy people can have HIV and not even know it. Anyone can get HIV. Everyone can protect themselves.