About the Global Media AIDS Initiative

The Global Media AIDS Initiative (GMAI) — www.thegmai.org — is founded on the principle that media represents a formidable ally in any effort to address HIV/AIDS. Launched in January 2004 at an historic meeting at U.N. headquarters of top media executives from around the globe, the GMAI was conceived and organized by the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS to mobilize and leverage the vast resources of the world’s leading media companies to address AIDS.

Global Media AIDS Initiative Highlights Reel – Watch!

Regional Partnerships

Through large-scale national and regional coalitions of media, a network that includes over 300 media companies, the GMAI unites broadcast companies around a common cause. Supporting member broadcasters pledge to make AIDS a business priority and dedicate airtime, creative talent and production resources to HIV-related programming.

• African Broadcast Media Partnership Against HIV/AIDS
• Asia-Pacific Media AIDS Initiative
• Caribbean Broadcast Media Partnership on HIV/AIDS
• Latin American Media AIDS Initiative
• Russian Media Partnership to Combat HIV/AIDS
• U.S. Entertainment Media Partnerships

• Global Partnerships

Goals & Objectives

• Develop media leadership in HIV/AIDS in addressing the pandemic;
• Provide strategic and technical support to regional partnerships;
• Forge strategic alliances between media and leading AIDS organizations and other related sectors;
• Offer tailored skill-building resources, including leadership and content-development workshops, online tutorials, and research and reporting guidelines;
• Serve as a general communications hub through its Web site: www.thegmai.org
• Facilitate the sharing of HIV/AIDS content

Kaiser’s Role as Secretariat

The GMAI Secretariat, run by the Kaiser Family Foundation, operates a number of large-scale regional coalitions of media. These “action arms” provide unprecedented coordination of media in response to any social issue. The Ford Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provide additional support.

The Need

Since the first diagnosis more than 25 years ago, over 60 million people worldwide have become infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS and an estimated 25 million have died. Despite the best efforts of policymakers, the scientific community and civil society, the AIDS pandemic continues to outpace the response. With its vast communications infrastructure and ability to shape attitudes, raise awareness and influence behavior, mass media represents a formidable force in the fight against HIV/AIDS. HIV is preventable; yet, gaps in public awareness exist in every region of the world. By working in partnership with media, information can be spread faster than the disease.

• The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic
• The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Asia
• The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the Caribbean
• The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Latin America
• The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in South Africa
• The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa

This issue brief illuminates the emotional and pocketbook struggles of families who have suffered financial reversals and lost health coverage in the economic recession forcing many to juggle bills, skip prescription medications and postpone visits to the doctor while they scramble to find a new job.

Many who once had steady employment and incomes have had to turn to Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program for the first time, even as those programs face increasing budget constraints. The report draws from five focus group discussions involving 36 adults in Bridgeport, Conn.; Charlotte, N.C.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Baltimore, Md. and Las Vegas, Nev.

Issue Brief (.pdf)

It’s Your (Sex) Life Awards

• 2010 Web Health Award for GYT: Get Yourself Tested
• 2009 Beacon Award for New Media Campaign – GYT: Get Yourself Tested
• 2009 Beacon Award for New Media Campaign – Pos or Not
• 2009 Joel A. Berger Award for GYT: Get Yourself Tested
• 2008 Emmy Nomination for A: Minute Contest
• 2007 Emmy Award for Marvelyn series PSAs That Night, Finding Out, and Denial
• 2007 Emmy Award for think HIV broadband campaign
• 2007 Emmy Nomination for The Speech and One of Those Guys
• 2007 Cable Positive POP Award for Outsanding PSA – The Speech
• 2007 Cable Positive POP Award for Outstanding PSA Campaign “Be An Authority”
• 2006 Emmy Nomination for four public service announcements: The Passive Aggressive Mutter, The Overzealous Blurt, The Random Segue, The Faux Technical Disguise
• 2006 Cable Positive POP Award for: PSA Campaign – Ask Your Doctor Series; News Magazine – Think Again: Sex Myths Revealed; POP Network of the Year
• 2004 Joel A. Berger Award for MTV News Now: Sex, Shool & Scandal
• 2003 Peabody Award for KNOW HIV/AIDS and Fight For Your Rights: Protect Yourself campaigns, with special recognition for The Social History of HIV

• 2003 Emmy Award for “Condom Factory” and “Condom Testing” PSAs

• 2003 Emmy Nomination for Easily Said and Done PSAs: “Night Kids”, “Deli” and “Drugstore”

• 2003 Beacon Award for Community Website

• 2003 Joel A. Berger Award for Fight For Your Rights: Protect Yourself

• 2002 National Emmy Award for Be Safe/Fight for Your Rights: Protect Yourself
• 2002 Cable Positive POP Award for Outstanding Special Programming for Staying Alive 3

• 2002 Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Ribbon of Hope Award for World AIDS Day Special, True Life: It Could Be You

• 2002 Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Ribbon of Hope Award for Convenience Store AIDS Awareness PSA

• 2001 Telly Award for Nightclub, Football, and Assembly PSAs

• 2001 Aegis Award for Nightclub, Football, and Assembly PSAs
• 2001 Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Ribbon of Hope Award for Convenience Store AIDS Awareness PSA
• 1999 Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Ribbon of Hope Award for World AIDS Day Special, True Life: It Could Be You

• 1999 New York Festivals Television Programming and Promotions Gold Medal Award for best public affairs program for World AIDS Day Special, True Life: It Could Be You

• Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Ribbon of Hope Awardfor World AIDS Day Special, True Life: It Could Be You

• 1999 Joel A. Berger Award for MTV/Kaiser Family Foundation Sexual Health Campaign
• 1998 Beacon Award for Outstanding HIV/AIDs Public Affairs Campaign for Be Safe Campaign
• 1998 Cine Golden Eagle Award for World AIDS Day Special,True Life: It Could Be You

The Kaiser Family Foundation maintains a number of primers providing overviews of key health care programs and issues. Written by Foundation staff, each primer provides key data and information that helps illustrate the topic and its relevance for the nation’s health care system.

Medicaid: A Primer

Medicare: A Primer

The Uninsured: A Primer

Health Care Costs: A Primer

How Private Health Coverage Works: A Primer

Mental Health Financing in the United States: A Primer

The U.S. Government Engagement in Global Health: A Primer

This article examines the evolution and current role of Medicaid in improving access to preconception care for low-income women. It reviews Medicaid’s eligibility policy and benefits of relevance to women of reproductive age, and discusses challenges facing the program.

Authors Alina Salganicoff, vice president and director of women’s health policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Jane An, a research assistant at the Foundation, also examine potential opportunities to use the Medicaid program to promote preconception care to low-income women.

The article was published in the journal Women’s Health Issues as part of a special supplement examining preconception health and health care.

Women’s Health Issues — Journal

Full Text of Article (.pdf)

This policy brief discusses several short-term options for strengthening Medicaid at time when the economic recession has increased demand for the program and constrained state budgets. It details potential steps such as increasing federal funding, easing enrollment barriers and temporarily expanding coverage.

Policy Brief (.pdf)

This policy brief reviews the public and private options available to help people maintain coverage if they become unemployed during a downturn and cannot get employer-sponsored coverage through a spouse. Specifically, it examines COBRA, non-group insurance and Medicaid. And it explains why, despite such options, more people will become uninsured as unemployment rises. Recent analysis predicts that each 1 percentage point increase in unemployment will lead to 1.1 million more uninsured adults.

Issue Brief (.pdf)