Exhibitions: AIDs, Posters, and Stories of Public Health

• The National Library of Medicine makes health information available in multiple languages. Posters can help raise awareness of the variety resources available to peers and community members in culturally specific ways.
• In this program, participants use reliable health information from MedlinePlus and HIV.gov to design public health posters about HIV/AIDS which are then displayed in a public gallery space.
• This program plan is designed to be adaptable to multiple health topics; HIV/AIDS is used here as a practical example.

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• Identify useful, reliable, and trusted HIV/AIDS resources available from the National Library of Medicine and other government agencies.
• Create posters accessible to peers and other community members that promote accurate, reliable health information about HIV/AIDS.

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• Teens and young adults
• College and university students
• Art, film, marketing, or public health students

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MedlinePlus is an online health information resource for patients and their families and friends:

• Read about symptoms, causes, treatment and prevention for over 1000 diseases, illnesses, health conditions and wellness issues including:
  • Health Statistics
  • HIV/AIDS
  • HIV: PrEP and PEP
  • Living with HIV/AIDS
  • Teen Health
• Browse health information in multiple languages, arranged by language.
• Find links to health information that is easier to read, understand, and use. These materials are designed to be clear and to follow best practices in health literacy.
• MedlinePlus is also available in Spanish.

HIV.gov is a gateway to all domestic U.S. government HIV & AIDS testing, treatment, & research information.

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• Graphic design and marketing businesses
• HIV/AIDS clinics
• HIV/AIDS outreach organizations
• High schools or colleges
• Public health departments

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Time

• Planning: 3-6 hours
• Workshop duration: 1-2 hours, or provide supplies for a take-and-make activity

Budget

• Up to $200 for craft supplies, poster hanging hardware, and reproduction costs

Suggested Supplies

• Optional: Tablets or computers with access to design tools such as Canva.com or Adobe InDesign
• Markers, colored pencils, paints, or other miscellaneous drawing supplies
• Magazines, newspapers, glue, and scissors for collaging
• Blank paper or posterboard with 11x17”, 18x24”, or 24x36” dimensions

Before the program

• If you are new to using MedlinePlus, use these training resources to help you prepare effectively for your classes and outreach activities.

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• Amplify and contextualize this program by making it part of an HIV Awareness Day such as National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (February 7), National Transgender HIV Testing Day (April 18), or HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day (June 5).
• Host a poster contest and select winning posters to reproduce and distribute in the community.
• Collaborate with a local public health department or HIV/AIDS clinic to reach additional participants or identify spaces to display completed posters.
• Make posters the end product in an expert-led graphic design workshop.

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1. Introduce participants to AIDS, Posters, and Stories of Public Health and the curated selection of public health posters about AIDS drawn from the collections of the National Library of Medicine or provide a list of links in take-and-make kits.

2. Familiarize participants with gov, MedlinePlus, and how to navigate Health Topics pages, or provide a list of links in take-and-make kits.

3. Provide one or more of the following excerpts from the banners of AIDS, Posters, and Stories of Public Health and corresponding prompts:

• Poster as platform for people living with HIV to tell and see their stories: make a public health poster that features “real” people and their stories of living with HIV/AIDS. In your poster, highlight a lived experience from within a community disproportionately impacted by HIV yet too often left out of more mainstream AIDS representations.
• Poster as canvas where people can share the immediacy of HIV: hand-drawing provides an opportunity for a person to make and share visuals that do not yet exist. In your poster, hand-draw a visual that helps others know they are not alone in their fears or experiences.
• Posters as opportunity to say what is needed in various ways: posters can help individuals have health information available in languages and culturally specific ways they understand. In your poster, convey health information in a language or with terminology commonly used in your community.
• Posters as place to gather, mourn, organize, and inspire: throughout the history of the AIDS crisis, groups of people brought together by the crisis created posters. In your poster, include a call to action or information about an upcoming event or commemoration.
• Poster as reminder that the crisis remains: multiple organizations have made and still make public health posters that remind people that AIDS is not over and in fact, for some people, the AIDS crisis is still beginning. In your poster, convey a current statistic about HIV/AIDS or point people to current treatment and prevention options.

4. Using graphic design software, supplied mixed media materials, or take-and-make kits with a variety of supplies, participants can use the prompt(s) to create an original poster offering health information in understandable and culturally specific ways.

5. Invite participants to leave or return their completed posters, or to allow the library to make a copy of their completed posters, for future display at the library or another public space such as a local school, HIV/AIDS clinic, or public health department.

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