Evaluating programs for HIV/AIDS prevention and care in developing countries : a handbook for program managers and decision makers

It was developed for use by program managers and decisionmakers rather than by researchers. Section I lays the foundation for HIV/AIDS program evaluation by describing the current consensus on generic concepts, approaches, and frameworks (chapter 1) and by outlining the practical development of an integrated evaluation and monitoring plan for projects (chapter 2). Section II describes the operational approaches for evaluating the core program strategies necessary to effectively reduce the sexual transmission of HIV (chapters 3 through 6), illustrating the unique and often very disparate methodologies needed to evaluate different program components. The section concludes with guiding principles on how to evaluate HIV/AIDS care programs (chapter 7). Section III focuses on measuring behavior change as the key outcome of standard prevention efforts. State-of-the-art methodologies and survey instruments for collecting behavioral data (chapters 8 through 10) and assessing their validity and 0reliability (chapter 11) are covered here, complemented by a chapter on tools for collecting qualitative information (chapter 12). The section concludes with effective strategies for disseminating survey data to key audiences (chapter 13). Finally, Section IV tackles evaluation issues related to assessing program impact, emphasizing the need to analyze behavioral and sero- epidemiological data in tandem (chapter 14). It also describes a newly developed tool for estimating the impact of different prevention strategies on HIV transmission (chapter 15), and provides practical guidelines for cost and cost-effectiveness analysis (chapters 16 and 17). The individual chapters in this handbook follow the logic of a program evaluation cycle, and, while written as "stand alone pieces", are clearly interconnected. Cross-references to other chapters are found throughout the book to help readers understand how the individual components of evaluation fit into the larger whole. (Author abstract, modified)