Special Report: 1992 CDC guidelines spell out dos and don’ts
1992 CDC guidelines spell out dos and don’ts
Here’s a summary of guidelines for content
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has asked all HIV prevention grant recipients to review their HIV/AIDS prevention materials to make certain these meet the CDC’s requirements. Here’s an abridged reprint of the guidelines, titled "Interim Revision of Requirements for Content of AIDS-Related Written Materials, Pictorials, Audiovisuals, Questionnaires, Survey Instruments, and Educational Sessions in Centers for Disease Control Assistance Programs," dated June 15, 1992:
I. Basic Principles
Controlling the spread of HIV infection and AIDS requires the promotion of individual behaviors that eliminate or reduce the risk of acquiring and spreading the virus. Messages must be provided to the public that emphasize the ways by which individuals can fully protect themselves from acquiring the virus. These methods include abstinence from the illegal use of IV drugs and from sexual intercourse except in mutually monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner. For those individuals who do not or cannot cease risky behavior, methods of reducing their risk of acquiring or spreading the virus must also be communicated. Such messages can be controversial. These principles are intended to provide guidance for the development and use of educational materials, and to require the establishment of Program Review Panels to consider the appropriateness of messages designed to communicate with various groups.
a. Written materials (e.g., pamphlets, brochures, fliers), audiovisual materials (e.g., motion pictures and video tapes), and pictorials (e.g., posters and similar educational materials using photographs, slides, drawings, or paintings) should use terms, descriptors, or displays necessary for the intended audience to understand dangerous behaviors and explain less risky practices concerning HIV transmission.
b. Written materials, audiovisual materials, and pictorials should be reviewed by Program Review Panels consistent with the provisions of section 2500(b), (c), and (d) of the Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. 300ee(b), (c), and (d), as follows:
(a) Sec. 2500. Use of Funds
(b) Contents of Programs — All programs of education and information receiving funds under this title shall include information about the harmful effects of promiscuous sexual activity and intravenous substance abuse, and the benefits of abstaining from such activities.
(c) Limitation — None of the funds appropriated to carry out this title may be used to provide education or information designed to promote or encourage, directly, homosexual or heterosexual activity or intravenous substance abuse.
(d) Construction — Subsection (c) may not be construed to restrict the ability of an education program that includes the information required in subsection (b) to provide accurate information about various means to reduce an individual’s risk of exposure to, or the transmission of, the etiologic agent for acquired immune deficiency syndrome, provided that any informational materials used are not obscene.
c. Educational sessions should not include activities in which attendees participate in sexually suggestive physical contact or actual sexual practices.
d. Messages provided to young people in schools and in other settings should be guided by the principles contained in "Guidelines for Effective School Health Education to Prevent the Spread of AIDS" (MMWR 1988; 37 [suppl. No. S-2]).
2. Program Review Panel
a. Each recipient will be required to establish or identify a Program Review Panel to review and approve all written materials, pictorials, audiovisuals, questionnaires or survey instruments, and proposed educational group session activities to be used under the project plan. This requirement applies regardless of whether the applicant plans to conduct the total program activities or plans to have part of them conducted through other organization(s) and whether program activities involve creating unique materials or using/distributing modified or intact materials already developed by others. Whenever feasible, CDC-funded community-based organizations are encouraged to use a Program Review Panel established by a health department or another CDC-funded organization rather than establish their own panel.
[Editor’s note: To obtain the full four-page copy of the CDC’s requirements, contact the CDC at www.cdc.gov or call the CDC media relations office at (404) 639-7277.]
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