Issues and Approaches to Evaluating HIV Outreach Interventions

Abstract

The lack of a medical cure or preventive vaccine for HIV calls for interventions that reduce the occurrence of the behaviors known to be associated with infection. The development of effective interventions requires rigorous evaluations that, to date, have been noticeably lacking in the field. In particular, assessments of HIV prevention efforts have considered interventions as “black boxes,” with little attention to the actual services delivered. In this paper, issues related to evaluating outreach interventions are presented and an evaluation strategy to measure the delivery of outreach services, using both quantitative and qualitative techniques, is recommended.