Phone Cards to Be Used in AIDS Awareness Program

Health officials in Orange and Los Angeles counties are planning to dramatically expand a trial program in AIDS prevention that uses telephone calling cards to bring safe-sex messages to people at high risk for contracting HIV.

The novel state-funded program provides free calling cards with 10 minutes of long-distance time that can only be accessed by listening to a 15-second AIDS prevention message. The calling card reaches people who would otherwise have little exposure to those warnings, according to health officials and AIDS counselors, including the homeless, injection drug users and adolescents trading sex for money or drugs.

“We approach them on the street and most of them don’t want to give us the time of day,” said Paul Diedrich, an AIDS counselor who worked for the Orange County Health Care Agency as an outreach worker. “[As] a reward for listening to us, they get the phone card.”

The state Department of Health Services is nearly tripling the number of cards it is offering to counties and other health agencies. In addition to increasing the number of cards for English speakers from 50,000 to more than 100,000, the state will provide 26,000 Spanish-language cards.

Agencies in Orange County are at least doubling the number of cards they are seeking, while in Los Angeles County agencies are seeking more than 20 times as many cards, having largely missed out on the program when it was in its demonstration phase last year.