May 19 is National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and World Hepatitis Day. This blog post is one of a series on the impact of HIV and Hepatitis B in Asian & Pacific Islander communities. As A&PIs, you may not believe that you are at risk for these diseases, but you are. Follow our posts throughout the week for different perspectives and stories from our community.

The San Francisco Hep B Free campaign was launched to create a hepatitis B free city – the first of its kind in the United States. The campaign is focused on awareness, free/low-cost screenings and vaccinations, partnerships with community organizations and medical providers, and treatment access for those who are chronically infected. Underlying this effort is the role of cultural competency and gaining the trust of the community that hepatitis B most adversely affects: Asians and Pacific Islanders. One of the largest health disparities in the U.S. is chronic hepatitis B and liver cancer. Compared to 1 in 1,000 cases in the general population, 1 in 10 Asians are chronically infected with this disease.

SF Hep B Free recently launched its second social marketing campaign with the tag line “Which One Deserves to Die?”. Playing off the 1 in 10 statistic mentioned above, daily life photos of ten doctors, office mates, a basketball team, and beauty pageant participants are portrayed pushing viewers to wonder which one will suffer from hepatitis B. The campaign is also translated into other Asian languages to reach its target audiences. Currently being put on billboards, bus stops, and in print, this campaign stops you in its tracks and makes the issue of hepatitis B personal. This action campaign interrogates the viewer to get tested for hepatitis B.

The SF Hep B Free campaign has been very successful in its messaging and services for Asians and Pacific Islanders in San Francisco. To increase the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders who get tested for HIV in San Francisco, Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center undertook an initiative to link hepatitis B and HIV in 2009. Prevention work is done one-on-one and at educational trainings and presentations. The goal is to tackle HIV stigma by talking about hepatitis B and then revealing its similarities to HIV. The hope is to normalize the topic of HIV and encourage people to recognize that HIV affects their world. Efforts showed that beliefs about HIV, such as the disease being a death sentence, changed after the educational presentations.

Looking forward to the future of HIV prevention for Asians and Pacific Islanders, the avenue of linking hepatitis B and HIV looks promising. Along with other community organizations and individuals working with Asians and Pacific Islanders in the HIV field, this idea is not new. HIV prevention funds in the state of California have been slashed in the last budget round and the national effort to put A&PIs on the HIV map has been difficult. However, imagine a coalition of individuals, medical providers, and community partners that ban together to fight HIV stigma by linking with hepatitis B testing and vaccination efforts. Steady and slow the process would be, but this may just be a creative out-of-the-box method to kill two birds with one stone.