Challenge of evaluating a national HIV prevention programme: the case of loveLife, South Africa.
Although 50% of all new global HIV infections occur among young people, our knowledge to date of the impact of adolescent HIV prevention interventions in developing country settings is limited. During 1999, a national HIV prevention programme for youth, called loveLife, was launched in South Africa. This paper describes the challenges faced in trying to evaluate such a national programme and the types of evidence that could be used to better understand the effect of programmes of national scale. A range of methods were planned to evaluate the programme, including national household surveys and programme monitoring data. Given the urgent need to scale-up programmes in an effort to reduce new HIV infections, a range of evidence should be assessed to measure the effect of large-scale, complex behavioural interventions as an alternative to randomised controlled trials.
Pettifor
Audrey E
AE
Department of Epidemiology, CB #7435, McGavran-Greenberg Building, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7435, USA. apettif@email.unc.edu
MacPhail
Catherine
C
Bertozzi
Stefano
S
Rees
Helen V
HV
D000293:Adolescent; D016497:Adolescent Health Services / Q000592:standards*; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D012747:Sexual Partners; D013019:South Africa / Q000453:epidemiology