Public Education Partnerships: MTV - Kaiser Family Foundation

About MTV: It's Your (Sex) Life

Since 1997, the Kaiser Family Foundation has partnered with MTV to undertake an extensive Emmy and Peabody Award-winning public information campaign to address pressing sexual health issues facing young people in the U.S. notably: HIV and other STDs. When it launched more than ten years ago, the partnership represented a new model for working with popular media to advance important social issues. Today, it continues to lead the way in using new media strategies to reach young people with critical health information.

GYT Logo Throughout April, MTV and the Kaiser Family Foundation, working with Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other partners nationwide, are supporting National STD Awareness Month with the GYT ("Get Yourself Tested") campaign to inform young people about STDs and normalize testing. Learn more.

Campaign Components

The campaign takes a multi-platform approach to providing information, using online and mobile technologies as well as MTV's core on-air assets. Messaging is integrated across programming genres including public service advertisements (PSAs), long-form documentary and entertainment programming, and news segments. The campaign engages MTV audiences through social networking, user generated content, and high-profile contests. It's Your (Sex) Life (IYSL) also provides young people with extensive free informational resources including a dedicated Web site and cell phone text messaging service providing access to HIV testing site locations.

SMS Text Message Service:
KNOWIT (566948)
Informational Guide

The Messages

Communicate: Take control of your sex life by talking about it with your partner, your health care provider, and your parents.
Delay & Reduce: Make thoughtful decisions about when is the right time to have sex, and with whom -- the first time and every time.
Protect: If you are having sex, learn about and use the tools to protect yourself from STDs and accidental pregnancy: always carry condoms and find a birth control method that works for you.
Test: If you are sexually active, getting tested for HIV and other STDs is a routine part of taking care of your health .

The Need

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 19 million new sexually transmitted diseases (STDs, also commonly referred to as sexually transmitted infections or STIs) occur every year in the U.S., half of them among people ages 15-24. A recent study found that one in four teen girls in the U.S. has at least one of the most common STDs.

Since many STDs show no visible symptoms, many of those who are infected do not know it. Among the more than one million Americans living with HIV today, one in five do not know they are infected. For other STDs, the rate is even higher. Lack of information and misconceptions about STDs keep many people from getting tested and treated.

Fact Sheet : Sexual Health of Adolescents and Young Adults in the United States

Research

Reaching the MTV Generation: Research on the Impact of the Kaiser Family Foundation/MTV Public Education Campaign on Sexual Health
National Survey of Adolescents and Young Adults: Sexual Health Knowledge, Attitudes and Experiences
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Awards

2008 Emmy Nomination for A: Minute Contest
2007 Emmy Award for Think HIV Campaign
2007 Emmy Award for Marvelyn Series PSA
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