EFFECTIVE HIV AIDS PREVENTION COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES TO REACH CULTURALLY UNIQUE POPULATIONS - LESSONS LEARNED IN SAN-FRANCISCO, USA AND BANGKOK, THAILAND/

Our research in San Francisco and Bangkok was purposely designed to ac hieve both applied and theoretical results. Specially, we analyzed the extent to which relatively more effective and relatively less effecti ve HIV/AIDS prevention programs in San Francisco and Bangkok use diffu sion of innovations theory (Rogers, 1995) and social marketing theory, (Kotler & Roberto, 1989) in reaching culturally unique populations. W e trace the history of HIV/AIDS in San Francisco and Bangkok and indic ate why it is relevant to study the application of these two theoretic al models to culturally-unique populations. Our findings indicate that key concepts of the diffusion of innovations model (for example, homo phily) and social marketing theory (for example, audience segmentation ) are especially important in designing culturally sensitive and effec tive HIV/AIDS prevention programs. Implications of our results for pra ctitioners are outlined here. In sum, when working with culturally uni que populations to prevent the spread of HIV, program administrations should: (1) segment their audience clearly and attempt to offer. depth rather than breadth iii the types of people reached, (2) use outreach workers who are either homophilous with the intended audience members or are opinion leaders in the community, and (3) create a program tha t is compatible with the values and beliefs of the audience members. ( C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.