ABSTRACT
Since the earliest cases began to be reported in the early 1980s, AIDS has quickly emerged as one of the most serious public health problems in contemporary Brazilian life. As in other nations, given the lack of a vaccine or a medical cure for HIV infection and AIDS, it quickly became apparent that, at least in the short term, education and health promotion would offer the only effective means of slowing the spread of the epidemic. Perhaps even more than in many other countries, however, not only the inherent complexities of AIDS itself, but also Brazil’s immense social and cultural diversity seem to have raised a series of problems for the development of effective educational programs. In this chapter I examine some of these problems, review the ways in which AIDS education activities on a variety of different levels have sought to respond to them, and look at the possible impact that these educational initiatives have had over a number of years. On the basis of this discussion, it might be possible to evaluate the prospects for AIDS education in Brazil in the future, as well as to offer at least some tentative suggestions about possible implications that the Brazil-ian experience might have for AIDS education in other settings.
