Results of a public advocacy campaign to increase access to condoms in Washington, DC

Graduate public health students participating in a community advocacy course in the School of Public Health and Health Services at The George Washington University developed a public health advocacy campaign to increase access to condoms in Washington, DC, the city with the highest AIDS rate in the USA. The target for the advocacy campaign was the CVS corporation which was locking condom displays and impeding customer access. The students visited the 51 CVS stores in the District of Columbia and constructed a GIS map that illustrated that condoms were only locked in the wards with the highest AIDS rates and whose residents are primarily African American.

To redress this injustice, the students organized a community coalition called “Save Lives: Free the Condoms” and designed a campaign to influence the CVS corporation to adopt a nationwide policy of free access to condoms. The campaign framed the issue as “health” not “theft” and all media materials and negotiations with the CVS corporation emphasized that frame. The Coalition focused on CVS's inherent discrimination of locking condoms only in the poorest, primarily African American neighborhoods.

Within three months, the Save Lives: Free the Condoms coalition had achieved favorable television and newspaper coverage and the national CVS corporation had agreed to unlock small packages of 3, 6, and 12 condoms. Larger packages remained locked and CVS continued to refuse to adopt a national written policy of free condom access. The Coalition continues to press CVS for complete free access to condoms in the future.