Innovative Outreach Strategies for Reaching Consumers Panel: Partnership Building in Support of Campaign Efforts

Background:  Act Against AIDS (AAA) is a national initiative launched in 2009 by the CDC and the White House to refocus attention on HIV and AIDS in the U.S.  AAA focuses on raising awareness of HIV among all Americans and reducing the risk of infection among the populations disproportionately affected by HIV – gay and bisexual men, African Americans, and Latinos. AAA is an umbrella program that comprises multiple targeted social marketing campaigns for both healthcare providers and consumers and includes national and community partnerships. 

Program background:  Partnerships are critical to the success of CDC and the Act Against AIDS initiative. CDC regularly coordinates with influential entities across various sectors to promote HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, communication, testing. The Act Against AIDS Leadership Initiative (AAALI) is a partnership between the CDC and some of the nation’s leading organizations representing populations disproportionately affected by HIV, including African Americans, Latinos, and gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM).  While many AAALI partners have longstanding commitments to fighting HIV in their communities, the initiative provides funding to support an HIV coordinator who works through the organization’s membership networks to disseminate co-branded AAA campaign materials and sponsor other HIV prevention activities.  In addition to AAALI partners, CDC funds two organizations separately as part of an MSM-specific funding opportunity. AIDS United and the Center for Black Equity (CBE) also support the distribution of AAA campaign messages through local community activities and co-branding efforts. In 2013, CDC established a relationship with Lifebeat, a national nonprofit dedicated to educating America’s youth (13-29) about HIV/AIDS prevention. As a result of this partnership two co-branded PSAs, one featuring Colombia musician Juanes and the other featuring hip-hop artist Swizz Beatz, have been developed and posted on the CDC YouTube channel. Last year Lifebeat also partnered with AAA to feature an HIV testing PSA on two Times Square Jumbotrons in New York.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  As of September 2013, AAALI partner organizations coordinated more than 1,900 outreach events attended by 3,337,208 people; engaged nearly 400 local affiliates across the country in HIV prevention activities; and reached millions more with critical HIV prevention messages through conferences, advertisements and media stories. Additionally, as a result of the relationship with AIDS United and CBE, CDC has forged a relationship with the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce’s annual conference – Creating Change. The co-branded PSAs developed with Lifebeat have garnered thousands of YouTube views to date. In addition, the PSA played in Times Square generated over 1.5 million impressions per day for the two days it ran around National HIV Testing Day in June 2013.

Conclusions:  CDC’s partnerships for the Act Against AIDS initiative are effectively using their collective strength and influence to increase HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, testing, and action within communities disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS across the United States.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Partnership building is critical to expanding the reach of a campaign to target audiences. Using partnership funding in a strategic way allows government agencies to multiply their ability to reach consumers.