“Obama Administration Announces New Campaign to Refocus National Attention on the HIV Crisis in the United States.”

That’s the headline from yesterday’s CDC press release announcing a five year, $45 million HIV prevention campaign called Act Against AIDS.  Phase one of the campaign, called "9 ½ Minutes,“ uses a series of video, audio, print and online materials to ”increase knowledge about the severity of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States."

Thank god they’re planning additional phases, because the videos bored me to death.  Phase II sounds much more promising, and will focus on African-Americans, including “targeted communications to encourage increased HIV testing among the two groups of African-Americans most severely affected, gay or bisexual men and women.”  Let’s hope they spend most of their budget on this next phase.

See if you agree with me.  Here’s one of the two English-language videos released yesterday that almost put me to sleep:



What would a good national HIV prevention campaign look like?  Should we even try broad-based campaigns, or focus on smaller, targeted audiences?  I’d be interested in what readers of this blog think.  Comment below.