[Youth and HIV: information campaigns by and for adolescents]. / Adolescenti e HIV. Le campagne informative dei giovani per i giovani.

This article describes a pilot project carried out in collaboration between the Istituto Superiore di Sanita and the Azienda Sanitaria Locale Roma E without any specific funding. The aim was to take a group of adolescents and provide them with a grounding in both HIV/AIDS infection and social communication, and with the instruments necessary to develop an informative campaign with other adolescents as the target group. The project was divided into three phases: sessions for raising levels of HIV/AIDS information and awareness involving 702 secondary school students; workshops to provide 120 selected students with communication and advertising know-how, to allow them to develop an HIV/AIDS infection information campaign targeted at their peers; a final event for the presentation of the students' findings. Prevention was the focus of the adolescents' resulting products, with particular attention to condoms as means of protection. The target population was judged as best influenced by channels such as posters and television ads, and the resulting messages were cartoon based, both ironic and fun yet accompanied by strong and direct statements designed to shock the viewer. The methods used in the project turned out to be particularly suitable for giving importance to the input of the participants who went from being publicity targets to developers.

[HIV prevention and adolescents: a sample survey on Italian high school students]. / La prevenzione dell'infezione da HIV, i giovani e le loro conoscenze: un'indagine su un campione di adolescenti italiani.

This article resulted from a survey carried out by some researchers of the Telefono Verde AIDS (TVA-National AIDS Help-Line) of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, with the collaboration of some colleagues of the Segreteria per le Attività Culturali. It is also a summary of strategies of intervention against HIV/AIDS for young people implemented by the Italian Ministry of Health. The study was developed within the context of the workshops on HIV/AIDS education carried out since 1995 by some researchers of TVA. These workshops fall within some other initiatives arranged by the Segreteria per le Attività Culturali for the diffusion of scientific and technological information. Our study aimed at assessing the level of knowledge on HIV/AIDS among some different high-school students. Data processing points out a widespread and quite good level of knowledge on HIV/AIDS in general and particularly on ways of transmission and prevention measures. Results obtained could not be generalized because the sample involved in the survey represented a privileged target, already sensitive to the issues concerning HIV infection and AIDS dealt with in the context of specific teaching programmes.