https://youtu.be/w-B5gHZl8_4

Guest post by Tony Hoang, Deputy Director, Equality California

Equality California’s #TakeIt:I’m PrEP’ed program is a statewide educational campaign to educate the LGBTQ community and healthcare providers on the availability and benefits of PrEP, the daily pill to prevent HIV, as well as other forms of HIV treatment and prevention. More broadly, this program falls under our broader efforts to end the HIV epidemic in California by “Getting to Zero” – zero new HIV transmissions, zero HIV-related deaths and zero HIV stigma.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP is one of the most exciting development in HIV prevention and has the potential to dramatically reduce HIV transmission rates and help end the epidemic. PrEP involves HIV-negative individuals taking the medication, Truvada, once per day, to protect against HIV. It is FDA-approved, safe, and up to 99% effective!

Our #TakeIt campaign targets gay and bisexual men and transgender woman, especially from communities of color, who are often most at risk for HIV. It consists of three primary components: training healthcare clinics and providers, community outreach at LGBTQ pride festivals and other events, and a public education campaign on social media, via email, and on LGBTQ dating apps, such as Grindr. In the last year, Equality California trained over 650 healthcare providers at 54 clinics across California and reached over 3.6 million people with our digital and in-person educational campaigns.