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The CRIPS is a specialised AIDS prevention center in the Paris metropolitan region. The Paris metropolitan region regroups 10 million inhabitants in its urban zone. This region is one of the most affected areas in Europe by AIDS and HIV infection, and contains more than 50 percent of the AIDS cases in France. As of June 30, 1991, the rate of declared AIDS cases in Paris was 8 for every one thousand inhabitants. At the beginning of the epidemic, AIDS basically concerned homosexuals in the center of Paris. Today, more and more young heterosexual drug users are affected. Adolescents from a low socio-economic background are often at risk of marginalization from the mainstream of society and thus at risk to become part of this new HIV affected population. They are often not reached by mass media, general public campaigns. In France, very little information materials are directly targetted to this young, socio-economically disadvantaged population. The CRIPS set out to devise a new prevention tool which would target young males from this population, particularly those in the 15-20 year age group. In preparation for the project, six months were spent on field research in the neighborhoods where the young people lived, worked and socialized. Interviews were held with young people themselves and adults in the area, particularly bar men and others working where the youth socialized.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Most of the world's major health problems and premature deaths are preventable. Health technology and scientific knowledge exists to combat health problems at an affordable cost. And, health education is recognized as a viable public health intervention and a vitally important means of addressing health challenges.

There are, in today's world, more than a billion young people of school age. Hundreds of millions of them are enrolled in the schools. They constitute the greatest single readily-reachable population group and present one of our greatest opportunities toward achieving a brighter health future. Are we availing ourselves of this opportunity? It is sad but true that too often school health education is considered as "something extra", a matter of peripheral interest, and is given low priority in school curriculum. Yet these young people--in the schools and outside them--are the parents, the citizens, the leaders of tomorrow. Theirs is the health of the future. We cannot afford to leave the health citizenship of the future to a generation only causally educated about life.

In 1987 a small health education research team in Montpellier became interested in AIDS prevention among high school students (15-19 years old). Studies at that time indicated that the majority of the youth were relatively well informed about AIDS, for example 99% of those questioned knew that the disease was transmitted by sexual intercourse or by the exchange of contaminated needles. Further studies indicated, however, that the young people did not feel that the subject concerned them personally--it was considered a problem like many others. The team decided therefore to design a programme which would involve the young people, and thus motivate them not only to question, but to look for answers and implicate themselves in the search for information. The programme design consisted in creating video workshops in selected high schools. Adults with different backgrounds were trained in video production and communication skills in order to develop sufficient staff for workshop supervision. A network of available specialists was recruited for consulting purposes and a specialized library which included audiovisual materials was created so that the young people would have sufficient resources available for their research. In order to incite the students to contemplate the subject of AIDS and all that it involves, a contest was held. The theme was simply, "AIDS" and the duration was the length of the 1988-89 school year. Eight workshops were created in eight different schools. The teams were created quite spontaneously and the dynamic of interrogation anticipated was realized. With the help of trained adult supervisors, each team started their project by designing a five minute video.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)