COLUMBUS, Ohio — A new public health campaign in Columbus, Ohio, is attracting attention for its ads promoting sexual health among young gay men.

The “Take Care Down There” campaign billboards and print ads feature shirtless men with arrows pointing below their waistlines.

Makeda Porter, the prevention-services manager at Columbus Public Health told LGBTQ Nationthat Columbus health officials anticipate that their message — “essentially, take good care of yourself — will be perceived as straightforward without being preachy.”

According to Porter, over a period of a few months, she and her colleagues met with several focus groups, concentrating on young men in general and young black men in particular.

In a report published last August by the Centers for Disease Control, the annual number of new HIV infections in the United States was at approximately 50,000 new infections each year between 2006 and 2009.

The CDC’s first multi-year estimates from its national HIV incidence surveillance find that overall, the annual number of new HIV infections in the United States was relatively stable at approximately 50,000 new infections each year between 2006 and 2009.

However, HIV infections increased among young men who have sex with men (MSM) between 2006 and 2009, driven by alarming increases among young, black MSM – the only sub-population to experience a sustained increase during the time period. MORE