Promoting Safe Sex With Posters on World AIDS Day

Courtesy of University of Rochester.

World AIDS Day is Dec. 1, a day devoted to the fight against HIV and for showing support for those living with the virus. It also is a day that has been used to raise awareness for prevention and better knowledge about AIDS.

Last year, NewsHour profiled Dr. Edward Atwater’s extensive collection of AIDS outreach posters, the majority of which were created in the 1980s and 90s. Here is the original video from 2011:

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Originally developed for public health campaigns to promote HIV testing, safe sex, and better knowledge of the virus and disease, Dr. Atwater began collecting the posters for their social and cultural importance. After years of collecting from all over the world, he donated all the posters to the University of Rochester.

The complete collection contains more that 6,200 posters, from all over the world and in a variety of languages.

Here’s a sample of posters selected from the Atwater AIDS Education Poster Collection:

View Slide Show

Since World AIDS Day 2011, the university’s archives have continued to develop a digital library of the Atwater collection, adding more than 1,000 posters to an online archive that is accessible to the public free of charge. Since the digitizing process began, 2,460 are available to view online.

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