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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Strategic Communication Programs Can Help Fight HIV/AIDS by Combining Proven Methods to Promote Positive Behavior ChangeNew Book Launched at Global Health Council's Annual Meeting
Just published by Sage Publishing in India, Strategic Communication in the HIV/AIDS Epidemic will be introduced this week at the Global Health Council's annual conference in Washington, DC. The authors - Neill McKee, Jane T. Bertrand, and Antje Becker-Benton - are specialists in designing, implementing, and monitoring and evaluating strategic health communication programs for behavior change. "Strategic communication promises to be as important for HIV/AIDS as it has been in other areas of public health, most notably family planning," said Bertrand, PhD, MBA, CCP's Director and Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "However, this approach has been vastly underutilized in combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic." Strategic communication works best when it combines interactive group and interpersonal methods on the ground with mass media initiatives and advocacy for policy change. All components should be linked directly to improved health and social service. A leader in the field of strategic communication for behavior change, CCP and its partners in developing countries implement programs that have demonstrated a positive impact, including a comprehensive program in Zambia that led to delayed sexual debut or return to abstinence among young women and increased condom use among sexually active youth. The authors base much of the book on what has been learned through successful developing country programs, many of which were funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The book details, among other issues, the importance of policy advocacy and community involvement; comprehensive prevention strategies; using communication to reduce stigma; designing approaches for specific audiences, including injecting drug users, people in refugee settings, and youth; the role of communication in clinics and in voluntary counseling and testing; and using entertainment-education. A useful list of resources is included in the book's appendix. Lead author McKee has 36 years' experience in international development. After 11 years with UNICEF, McKee joined CCP in 2001 as a Senior Technical Adviser for Communication on HIV/AIDS and now serves as head of CCP's Healthy Russia 2020 project, which is based in Moscow and funded by USAID. Bertrand began her career in international family planning but her focus has shifted increasingly toward HIV/AIDS since the mid-1980s. Before joining CCP, she was a faculty member at Tulane University for 22 years and chaired the Department of International Health and Development from 1994 to 1999. Becker-Benton has been working in HIV/AIDS since the early 1990s and developing strategic communication programs with CCP since 1997. She specializes in youth and local radio and currently serves as Senior Technical Adviser to the CORE Initiative, a USAID-funded effort to involve communities and faith-based organizations in the fight against HIV and AIDS. To order, contact bookorders@indiasage.com or visit www.indiasage.com. With representatives in more than 30 countries, Johns Hopkins' CCP is a pioneer in the field of strategic, research-based communication programs for behavior change and health promotion that have helped transform the theory and practice of public health communication. |
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BALTIMORE — Strategic communication has successfully tackled many public health problems over the years such as smoking cessation, seatbelt use, and lowering serum cholesterol, but it has not been used to its full potential in the fight against HIV/AIDS, according to a new book from health communication experts at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs (CCP). 
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