Implementation and Analysis of Respondent Driven Sampling: Lessons Learned from the Field

Those who engage in illegal or stigmatized behaviors, which put them at risk of HIV infection, are largely concentrated in urban centers. Owing to their illegal and/ or stigmatized behaviors, they are difficult to reach with public health surveillance and prevention programs. 1 These populations include illicit drug users, sex workers and men who have sex with men. Development and implementation of adequate prevention services targeting hidden populations requires data on risk behaviors and disease prevalence from non-biased samples. In the last two decades, a number of sampling methods have been used to collect risk behavior and disease prevalence data from highly at-risk populations and to direct survey participants to prevention services. These include venue-based time–space sampling, targeted sampling, and snowball sampling. Time–space (also called time–location or venue–day–time) and targeted sampling provide coverage limited to population members who are readily accessible; those who are missed may differ from those who are Bcaptured[. 2 Targeted sampling fares well when compared to other forms of convenienc

Methods for assessing HIV and HIV risk among IDUs and for evaluating interventions

A wide range of methods is now available for assessing the nature and characteristics of drug injecting populations, and for evaluating the effectiveness of interventions developed to reduce injecting related harms. The public health surveillance tasks in relation to injecting drug use populations and associated health problems are the same, in principle, as for the surveillance of other health problems. These are: to describe the patterns of the condition, the nature of the problem and the environment (context) in which it occurs: to determine the scale of interventions needed and estimated coverage required, to forecast future health care needs; to mobilise resources and target prevention; and to evaluate interventions. Countries vary in their existing levels of information as well as resources for surveillance systems, research and evaluation. We propose three levels of assessment: basic assessment, which is suitable in situations of low awareness and information, routine surveillance, and enhanced surveillance, which requires more complex research and/or analyses of data collected from routine surveillance. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

HIV surveillance systems in the Asia Pacific region

In 2011, the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Regional Support Team for Asia-Pacific conducted a stock-taking process of available strategic information in the Asia Pacific region. This paper summarizes the progress of HIV surveillance for 20 countries in the region, covering population size estimates of key populations at higher risk, HIV case reporting, HIV sentinel surveillance and probability surveys of behavioural and biological markers. Information on surveillance activities was obtained from publically available surveillance reports and protocols, supplemented by personal communication with the UNAIDS monitoring and evaluation advisers and surveillance experts in country. Key findings include substantial efforts in broadening the number and types of HIV surveillance components included in national HIV surveillance systems and adopting approaches to make surveillance more cost-efficient, such as integrating routine programme monitoring data and passive surveillance case reporting systems. More investment in regularly analysing and applying surveillance data to programme strengthening at the subnational level is needed but will require additional capacity-building and resources. The ability to triangulate multiple sources of surveillance data into a more comprehensive view of the HIV epidemic will be enhanced if more investment is made in better documentation and dissemination of surveillance activities and findings

Evaluation design for large-scale HIV prevention programmes: the case of Avahan, the India AIDS initiative.

BACKGROUND: Closing the HIV prevention gap to prevent HIV infections requires rapid, worldwide rollout of large-scale national programmes. Evaluating such programmes is challenging and complex, requiring clarity of evaluation purpose and evidential approaches substantively different to those employed for pilots and small programmes. OBJECTIVES: This paper describes the evaluation design for the implementation phase of Avahan, the India AIDS initiative, a large HIV prevention programme funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Avahan, which began in December 2003, has a 10-year charter to impact the Indian epidemic and its response by implementing an HIV prevention programme targeting core and bridge groups in 83 districts of six Indian states, transferring the programme to the Government of India, and disseminating programme learning. METHODS: The foundation commissioned an external process to design Avahan's evaluation framework. An independent advisory group oversees and guides course corrections in the execution of this framework. RESULTS: Avahan's evaluation framework comprises: trend and synthetic analysis of data from core, bridge and household biobehavioural surveys in a subset of intervention districts, denominator estimates and programme monitoring from all intervention districts, and government's antenatal surveillance (two sites per district in all districts); bespoke transmission dynamics modelling to estimate infections averted (subset of districts); cost effectiveness studies (subset of districts). In addition, there are other knowledge-building and quality-monitoring activities. CONCLUSION: Rather than a small set of monofocal outcome measures, scaled programmes require nuanced evaluations that approximate programmatic scale by collecting data with different levels of geographical scope, synthesize multiple data and methods to arrive at a composite picture, and can cope with continuous environmental and programme evolution