Awareness Of, About, or For – Which Is Correct?

A lot has been said in recent years, about the need to raise awareness or bring awareness to important topics we should be discussing as a society.

However, what’s the most appropriate way to mention it? Should we say “Awareness Of”, or “Awareness For” something? Let’s find out.

Awareness Of, About, or For – Which Is Correct?

“Awareness Of” and “Awareness About” are synonyms and indicate what needs the spotlight, helping people understand a problem and how to help. “Awareness Of” is the most common form. “Awareness For” explains the reason for the awareness, “because” or “to”. It’s more about motivation and purpose than the cause itself.

Take a look at the examples below:

• Dylan works to raise awareness of environmental issues.
• Dylan works to raise awareness about environmental issues.
• Dylan works to raise awareness for environmental issues. (incorrect)
• Dylan works to raise awareness for environmental issues that should be talked about more.

The first and the second sentences in the examples work well. Regardless if you choose to use “Awareness Of” or “Awareness About”, the same message is properly conveyed.

In the third sentence, “Awareness For” doesn’t work. We need more information in the sentence, for the use of “Awareness For” to make sense.

The fourth sentence does the job, by expanding the idea and sharing the larger picture of what Dylan’s doing, which is “raise awareness for topics that should be talked about more”.

Let’s take a look at each expression separately, to make sense of them.

Awareness Of

“Awareness” is the knowledge that something exists or an understanding of a situation or subject. “Awareness Of” indicates the topic the subject wants to raise awareness for and seems to be the easiest way to bring attention to a subject or topic. “Awareness Of” and “Awareness About” are synonyms.

Let’s see some examples:

1. Children need to be taught awareness of other people’s feelings.
2. Clara has no awareness of her surroundings.
3. To work in healthcare, one needs to have a good awareness of people’s emotional states.
4. Paul doesn’t have a great awareness of the issue, and we should talk to him.
5. We should raise awareness of the situation if we want to see change.

Awareness About

“Awareness About” is an alternate form to “Awareness Of”, and indicates what is the subject that should be brought to the spotlight and paid attention to.

Take a look at the examples below:

1. Raising awareness about charities and social work in your area is important.
2. Dennis should be raising awareness about discrimination in the workplace, at the firm.
3. Part of Diana’s job is increasing awareness about people with disabilities.
4. The campaign’s goal is to bring awareness to food insecurity in underdeveloped areas.
5. Paul’s goal is to dedicate his career to bringing awareness to rare diseases.

Awareness For

“Awareness For” should be used to indicate the reason or the purpose of the act of raising awareness about an issue or topic. “For” in this case works mostly as a preposition or conjunction meaning “because” or “to”.

Take a look at some helpful examples:

1. We need to raise awareness for there’s much at stake.
2. Celebrities need to choose their causes and raise awareness for they have a big platform.
3. We should be raising awareness for the sake of the future of the children waiting for adoption.
4. The project’s goal is to raise awareness for those living with rare diseases.
5. Light pink ribbons raise awareness for breast cancer.

O all three forms, “Awareness For” is the most difficult to use and likely the most uncommon. Leave it for formal settings, when you need to address a more polished audience.

Which Is Used the Most?

Which one of those forms is used more often, “Awareness Of”, “Awareness About”, or “Awareness For”? Let’s take a look at the graph from Google Ngram Viewer below and find out.

“Awareness Of” is by a large difference the predominant phrase in this comparison. It’s the easiest one to use and apply to real-life sentences, as well as the one we see more frequently in all kinds of material about awareness.

“Awareness About” and “Awareness For” appear closer to the bottom of the graph. “Awareness For” is the least used of all three, and we didn’t expect it to be different – simply because this phrase has more limited use and is harder to apply to real-life sentences, in general.

You should keep in mind, nevertheless, that all three phrases are grammatically correct and could be used if you choose to do so.

Final Thoughts

“Awareness Of” is the most common form to bring about a topic that people need to know and have an understanding of. “Awareness About” is a synonym of “Awareness Of”, just less commonly used. “Awareness For” should be used to indicate the reason or purpose of the awareness.