December 1 is World AIDS Day. According to the November 2011 HIV-AIDS Fact Sheet (PDF), there are 34 million people in the world living with HIV. New HIV infections have declined by more than 20% since their peak in 1997, and declined by 15% between 2001 and 2010. Still, there were about 2.7 million new infections in 2010 or more than 7,000 new HIV infections per day. In North America, there are 1.3 million people with HIV/AIDS, and 58,000 people were newly infected in 2010.
The Kaiser Family Foundation marked the 30th year of the AIDS epidemic with a large-scale national survey of Americans: HIV/AIDS At 30. The survey revealed that there is a declining sense of national urgency and visibility of HIV/AIDS and reported HIV testing rates are flat since 1997, including among some key groups at higher risk.
One of the key initiatives on the AIDS front is the GYT campaign, or “Get Yourself Tested. One in two sexually active young people will get a sexually transmitted disease (STD) by age 25. And of the approximately 19 million new cases of STDs that occur every year in the United States, most will go undiagnosed. The GYT campaign offers many materials that could be incorporated in a wellness campaign, including prevention information, promotions via celebrity videos and a find a local STD testing site search tool.
The CDC also has a comprehensive workplace resource: Business and Labor Responds to AIDS. It includes 5 components:
- HIV/AIDS Policy Development
- Training for managers, supervisors and labor leaders
- HIV/AIDS education for employees/workers
- HIV/AIDS education for employees’/workers’ families
- HIV-related community service, volunteerism, and philanthropy