increase awareness — make people know
collocationB1IELTS 5+neutralcommon
to help more people know about or understand something, especially an issue or topic
Say it like a native
Textbook The campaign aims to augment public cognisance of the issue.
Native The campaign aims to raise awareness of the issue.
Natives 'raise/increase awareness'; 'augment public cognisance' is jargon.
Pattern: increase awareness (of something)
In use
- The campaign aims to increase awareness of mental health issues among teenagers.society
- In my opinion, schools should do more to increase awareness of healthy eating habits among students.IELTS speaking
Common mistake
✗ We want to increase awareness people about recycling.
✓ We want to raise people's awareness of recycling.
'Raise awareness OF something' (informally 'about'); 'raise' is the most natural verb here.
Common collocations
raise/increase awareness of— of, raise, public, about
Don't confuse it
'Increase awareness' and 'raise awareness' mean the same thing and can often be used in similar situations.