Best,’ and ask ‘Sick of STDs?’
AHF rolls out two new national billboard and public health ad campaigns promoting COVID-19 booster shots and encouraging at-risk individuals to get tested for STDs, including HIV, and get treated and into care, if needed
LOS ANGELES (April 1, 2022) This week, AHF rolls out two new national billboard and public health awareness ad campaigns covering topics including COVID-19 booster shots and testing for sexually-transmitted-diseases (STDs).
AHF’s “Boosted is Best” campaign aims to educate the public on the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine, including booster shots. AHF’s other new campaign boldly asks a more delicate question: “Sick of STDs?” in a bid to encourage sexually active and/or potentially at-risk people to get tested for STDs, including HIV.
The Los Angeles Times recently reported, “Boosting (COVID-19) vaccination rates, health officials and experts say, is all the more pressing given the widespread relaxation of other measures — namely mask mandates — that had been imposed to help stymie the virus’ spread.”
‘Boosted is Best’ campaign
AHF’s billboard and campaign art encouraging COVID-19 vaccination and booster shots features the “Boosted is Best” tagline set against a colorful background image of vibrant sunset. To reinforce or suggest the boosting message, a simple black silhouette of a lone individual bouncing above a trampoline is seen centered over the billboard tagline.
“Boosted is Best,” which drives to the website www.getcovidVAX.org started posting this week in 30 cities in 15 states across the country where AHF provides services as well as in Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. It will appear in both English and Spanish—1,069 ad units in total—as billboards, transit ads, online digital ads and in social media posts as well as in print and online publications in Los Angeles, South Florida and Washington, D.C.
‘Sick of STDs?’ campaign
AHF’s “Sick of STDs?” billboard and campaign art features that simple question placed as a headline over the image of an unfurled, horizontal condom and drives viewers to the website: www.freeSTDcheck.org. “Sick of STDs?” will feature 100 ad units and will run in English and Spanish in 14 markets where AHF provides services in a media mix of billboards, bulleting, bus bench and transit ads as well as in print and online publications in Los Angeles, South Florida and Washington, D.C.
Despite pandemic-related lockdowns over the past 2+ years that limited in-person contact and isolated many people, researchers found that STD rates in the U.S. were “at their highest numbers,” something also borne out in numbers from many of AHF’s own AHF Wellness Centers that offer free STD testing and treatment.
In October 2021, The Guardian reported that in many jurisdictions in the U.S., public health resources and dollars had been redirected to COVID-19 testing and prevention. The newspaper noted, “… following an artificial dip in STI rates during the Covid-19 pandemic, STI rates are now on the rise again while health funding is still being allocated to address the pandemic.”
