APLA 25 Years of HIV/AIDS Education
The core service continues to this day

Imagine, then, the early 1980s, when so little was known about the disease. "Reduce fear" became an often-stated aim of early volunteers, staff and board members at APLA. One of APLA's first steps was to produce and distribute a brochure about AIDS. Printed 25 years ago this month, in English and Spanish, the February 1983 brochure answered basic questions about the disease. Its content was based on the limited information available at the time; it would be another year before the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was identified as the cause of AIDS.

With the publication of that brochure, APLA began to focus on public education, a core service that continues to this day. APLA's first full-scale educational campaign followed two years later, in 1985. The now-famous "LA Cares" ads were produced in conjunction with the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center. They featured a sweet and motherly character who taught her "boys" about safer sex. The campaign comprised billboards, public service announcements and print advertising, and also included graphic safer sex guides for gay men titled "Can We Talk?" and "Mother's Handy Sex Guide." For a wider audience, APLA and the Center ran a "Southern California Cares" campaign, with the theme "Fight the Fear with the Facts."

Today, APLA’s education and health promotion programs operate locally, nationally and abroad. Since that first brochure, a steady stream of provocative, research-based materials has issued from APLA. In recent years, APLA has increased its output for international audiences, and forged partnerships with organizations in hard hit regions that are coming to grips with their HIV epidemics through education and empowerment.

From a single brochure 25 years ago, to range of publications and websites with global reach today, APLA makes HIV/AIDS education at home and abroad a primary focus.