Public awareness campaign sheds light on health risks
associated with couple infidelity
LOS ANGELES (March 24, 2015) — AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the world’s largest AIDS organization, unveiled its newest billboard public awareness campaign in Los Angeles this week to encourage honesty and transparency in sexual relationships and promote testing for HIV and STDs. The billboards feature images of heterosexual and gay couples lying in bed—with one partner looking suspiciously at the other—and asks the simple question, “Trust Him?” or “Trust Her?” The series of billboards uses images of four diverse couples representing at-risk populations to promote freeHIVtest.net and freeSTDcheck.org, online portals where individuals can quickly locate AHF’s nearest free HIV or STD testing sites from their computers or mobile phones.
“In today’s tabloid culture when it can seem that the game called ‘Life’ should be more appropriately tiled ‘Lies,’ the old adage holds true now more than ever, ‘It’s better to be safe than sorry.’” said AHF President Michael Weinstein. “While infidelity is nothing new, the level of risk in contracting STDS from bed-hopping partners is at an all-time high. We want to remind couples that STDs linger around much longer than a wandering eye and that secret sexual experiences can often produce much more than what one bargained for.”
In particular, to draw attention to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) statistics presented in its 2012 HIV Surveillance Supplemental Report that 84% HIV infections in women arise from heterosexual contact, one set of billboards features a heterosexual couple in one image and a gay couple in the other—but with the same man in both beds. The report also found that approximately one in five people living with HIV infection in the United States is a woman.
The public awareness campaign will encourage frank dialogue around sexual honesty and safer-sex practices across multiple platforms including online video vignettes and man-on-the-street interviews, radio and television talk show segments, and “caption this” photo images promoted through social media. The digital component of the campaign encourages social media engagement by using the hashtags #TrustHim and #TrustHer.
The Trust Him? / Trust Her? billboard campaign is also scheduled to run in Oakland, CA; Washington, DC; Columbus, OH, and Broward County, FL.