Description: Despite advances in HIV treatment, there is still considerable stigma around HIV. An animation was created to communicate information about HIV stigma. To determine the most important topics to address in the animation, a community advisory committee comprised of people living with HIV was consulted. From their stories and the themes they prioritized, a script was written, which was then storyboarded and animated. The community advisory committee was involved throughout the course of the project’s development, providing feedback on content.

Why did you conduct this research? HIV stigma has a multitude of negative impacts on health and wellbeing, making it an important issue to address. Animation has been shown to be an effective tool in education about health related topics. A lot of stigma is due to misconceptions and a lack of understanding of the disease, so an educational animation was created, aimed toward the general public. The animation takes HIV stigma, a complex and abstract topic, and makes it approachable and easy to understand.

Technique: Backgrounds and stills were done in Clip Studio Paint. Animation was done in Adobe Animate and Adobe After Effects. Some assets were created in Adobe Illustrator.

Acknowledgements: Financial support was generously provided by REACH Nexus at MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, Unity Health Toronto. Dr. Sean Rourke acted as my content advisor, and Dr. Shelley Wall and Dr. Derek Ng were my faculty supervisors. This project also would not have been possible without the invaluable input from my community advisory committee.