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Issues and Approaches to Evaluating HIV Outreach Interventions

NCJ Number
167109
Journal
Journal of Drug Issues Volume: 26 Issue: 3 Dated: (Summer 1996) Pages: 525-539
Author(s)
R E Booth; S K Koester
Date Published
1996
Length
15 pages
Annotation
The lack of a medical cure or preventive vaccine for HIV calls for interventions that reduce the occurrence of behaviors known to be associated with infection, and the development of effective interventions requires rigorous evaluations that have been noticeably lacking to date.
Abstract
In particular, assessments of HIV prevention efforts have considered interventions as "black boxes," with little attention paid to actual services delivered. Adding a qualitative dimension to the study of intervention delivery provides a means of collecting data on the content of the "black box." Qualitative research can identify factors affecting intervention delivery, describe how an intervention is operationalized in the field, and provide information about the impact of the intervention from both outreach workers and targeted recipients. On the other hand, quantitative methods offer a way to measure response dose, as well as other interventions received, and to incorporate these measures into the analysis of behavior change. Issues related to evaluating outreach interventions are presented, and an evaluation strategy to measure the delivery of outreach services that uses both quantitative and qualitative techniques is recommended. 35 references and 2 figures