Various Definitions of ABC
Certainly, one of the factors contributing to the spread of the phrase “ABC” was the popular appeal of the Philippines’ Dr. Flavier. However, in the US government’s adoption of the ABC strategy, PEPFAR drew from one interpretation of Uganda’s use of ABC, but ABC also has important roots in U.S. policy related to abstinence-only sex education (Blum, 2004). In fact, the term “ABCs of STDs” (which lists abstinence, be monogamous and condom use) appears as a trademarked phrase in the 1984 Educators Guide to STDs, which is one of many health education manuals developed for U.S.-based school teachers (Sroka, 1989). Sroka’s work was funded in part by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from funds for domestic programs, according to Ward Cates and Gary West, President and Vice President of Research, FHI and formerly with CDC (Cates and West, 2004). The connection between U.S.-based mention of ABC and its use internationally is unclear,
1 but the seeds were sown in the U.S. to be strongly supportive of the current definition of ABC—when the evidence from Uganda was presented.
Notes
- Dr. Jacob Gayle, Deputy Vice President for Global Health Initiatives at the Ford Foundation, worked with Dr. Sroka in the mid-1980s and says that although he is not certain of the link between the domestic reference to ABC and its use internationally, but notes, “as one who has worked extensively on HIV/AIDS around the world, I know that my first hearing of “ABC” within a non-US context was several years after Steve had already been ‘preaching’ the ABCs in Ohio and elsewhere.” He also noted that before joining CDC, “Dr. Sroka had instilled ‘ABC’ within my mind and framework, and that of many others” (Gayle, 2004).
